
Qass LA.L3^ 

Book '^ n SS 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



HISTORY OF COMMON 
SCHOOL EDUCATION 

AN OUTLINE SKETCH 



BY 

LEWIS F. ANDERSON, Ph.D. 

TEACHER OF PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION IN THE NORTHERN 
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, MARQUETTE, MICH. 






NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1909 



JLIKRAHY of CONGRESS 
I Twu Gcuies Heceived 

I MAh 21 W9 

I Copyru/'t -entry 
CLrttsS *3u KXc, iMo. 



Copyright, 1909, 

BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



PREFACE 

This book aims to give, as clearly, concisely, and 
concretely as possible, such information regarding the 
history and development of the common or non- 
professional school as will most aid teachers and 
others to an intelligent understanding of the common 
school of to-day, its nature and functions, its rela- 
tions to other institutions, educational and otherwise. 
Along with this it aims to give in outline an account 
of the development of the science and art of common 
school education that will aid the teacher in working 
out effective methods of instruction and organization. 
The book, it will be seen, is planned in accordance 
with the conviction that the adequate professional 
preparation of the teacher involves a knowledge of 
the history and development of the school as an in- 
stitution as well as a knowledge of the development 
of educational theory. 

!. My aim has been to bring the facts adduced to 
focus upon the history of common school work in 
America. For this reason more space than usual has 
been assigned to England and less to Germany, for 
although most of the current educational philosophy 
had its origin in the latter country, it is chiefly in the 
former that the earlier history of the American 

schools is to be traced. 

iii 



IV PREFACE 

In writing the book I have followed the conviction 
that opinions based upon a fresh study of original 
sources would be of value; hence I have used such 
of the literary and other records of Greece, Rome, and 
medieval Europe as were accessible. The matter of 
the book is derived mainly, however, from secondary 
sources. Confining myself to those authorities upon 
whose works I have drawn most extensively, I wish 
to acknowledge my indebtedness for the Greek period 
to Dumont, Girard, Hatch, Grasberger, and Su- 
semihl; for the Roman to Boissier and Jullien; for 
the Gallo-Roman to Denk; for the medieval to 
Specht, Paulsen, Leach, Rashdall, De Montmorency, 
and Mullinger. For information on schools and 
school-work in America I am most indebted to ^ The 
Making of Our Middle Schools,' by Elmer E. 
Brown, to Barnard's American Journal of Education, 
and to the publications of the U. S. Bureau of 
Education. 

The basal studies for the earlier chapters were 
made during a summer's sojourn at Harvard and 
during longer periods of work at Leipzig and Clark 
Universities. I am indebted for aid and encourage- 
ment to President Hall and other members of the 
last-mentioned institution. For criticism and sugges- 
tion on the first chapter I am indebted to Professor 
Arthur O. Norton of Harvard. 

MARguETTE, Michigan, 
February, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS i 

The Conditions of Development 2 

Educational Features of the Social Life of the Early 

Greeks 4 

Music 4 

The Declamation and Exposition of the Rhap- 
sodes 7 

The Teaching of Reading and Writing by the 

Scribes 7 

Military Training and the Sacrificial Games . 8 

. General Features of the Greek Schools . . . . 10 

Social Rank of the Teacher . . . . . . . 11 

Extent to Which the Schools Were Differentiated . 12 
'Course of Study and Methods in the School of the 

Grammatist 12 

The Work of the Music School 16 

The Training in the Palestra 18 

Centers of Educational Influence outside of the 

School 19 

The New Education in the Elementary and Higher 

Schools 20 

The Schools of Philosophy . 21 

Educational Theorists . 25 

The Sophists and the Schools of Rhetoric . .. . 26 

Resume on the Schools of Athens 30 

CHAPTER II 

THE SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA 32 

The Conditions Affecting Alexandrian Culture . . 32 
The Alexandrian School and the Character of Its 

Work ... .. .. ... . . . .. ... ... ... ... 34 

V 



VI CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

PAGE 

THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 2,1 

Early Extra-school Education among the Romans . zi 
The Beginnings of Elementary School Instruction 

among the romans 4i 

The Character of Elementary School Instruction . 42 
The Beginnings of Secondary (Cultural) School- 
work AMONG the Romans 46 

Growth of Secondary Schools. Differentiation into 

Private, Municipal, and State Schools . . . . 51 

Roman Secondary School-work 53 

Grammar 55 

Literature 56 

Rhetorical Exercises 58 

Other Subjects 60 

The Roman Schools of Rhetoric 63 

quintilian 66 

Status of the Teacher among the Romans ... 67 

Resume on Roman Schools 68 

CHAPTER IV 

THE TRANSITION PERIOD 70 

The Catechetical and the Cathedral Schools . . 70 

The Earliest Monastic Schools 71 

Gr^co-Roman Culture in the Last Days of the 

Roman Empire 72 

Decline of Roman Civilization and Culture ... 74 



CHAPTER V 

THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES . . 
Unfavorable Culture Conditions .... 

How Culture Survived 

Reforms in Monastic Life Favorable to Learning 
Continuity of Roman School Tradition through the 

Middle Ages 

Important Medieval Texts and Text-book Writers 
Establishment of Monastic Centers of Learning 
Revival of Learning under Charlemagne 
Revival of Learning in England under Alfred 



76 
76 
76 
80 

82 
82 
84 
85 
87 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

Influence of Norman Conquest on School-work in 

England 88 

The Aim of Medieval School-work 89 

CHAPTER VI 

THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY .... 93 

(a) Elementary Instruction 93 

Reading . . . . . . ..... 93 

Writing . . . . 94 

Music '..'..'. 95 

Arithmetic 95 

Latin, Conversation, and Grammar .... 96 

The Aim of the Course 96 

Differences between the Work of the Different 

Schools 97 

(b) The Trivium 98 

Grammar, Importance, Method, Texts, Readers . 98 

Rhetoric 112 

Law . . . . 113 

Dialectic . . . 115 

(c) The Quadrivium 118 

Arithmetic . . 118 

Geometry 122 

Natural History 124 

Astronomy 126 

Music . . .127 

CHAPTER VII 

THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS .... 129 

(a) Monastic Schools 129 

The Function of the Monastery in Medieval 

Society 129 

Extent of the Educational Influence of the 

, Monasteries 129 

Buildings 130 

Maintenance 131 

Supervision of Conduct 131 

Industrial Training 132 

The Later Monastic Orders . . . . . . 132 



VIU CONTENTS 

PAGE 

(b) Cathedral and Collegiate Church Schools . .133 

The Collegiate Church 133 

The Grammar School . . . . . . .134 

The Song School 134 

The Support of Poor Students 137 

Private Collegiate Establishments . . . .139 
The Scholasticus and the Clerical Control of 

THE Schools 140 

The Precentor 141 

(c) Parish Schools . ., . ,. -.. .. . ... . 142 



CHAPTER VIII 

CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCHOOLS AS TO 

METHOD OF MAINTENANCE 146 

Chantry Schools 147 

Guild Schools 148 

Stipendiary Schools .... . -.i .■ . .149 

Morrow Mass Schools ........ 149 

Hospital Schools 150 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATIONAL INSTI- 
TUTIONS 152 

Influence of the Twelfth Century Renaissance upon 
THE Educational Life of the Middle Ages . . .152 

Chivalrous Education 152 

Extension of School Education among the Middle 

AND Lower Classes i57 

City Grammar Schools i59 

The Rise of the Folk School ...... 160 

Writing and Reckoning Schools ..... 162 

Private Tutors 163 

The Status of the Teacher 163 

Judicial Confirmation of the Right to Teach . . 164 

The Craft Guilds as Educational Institutions . . 165 
Resume and Conclusion on Medieval Schools and 

Schoolwork . ......... 168 



CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER X 

PAGE 

THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE RE- 
LATED INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENTS ... 171 

The Study of Medicine 171 

The Study of Law 172 

The Study of Theology and the Scholastic Movement 172 

The Origin of the Universities 174 

Organization of the Universities 175 

University Degrees . 176 

The Faculties 178 

Changes in the Relative Rank of Degrees and of 

Schools 178 

CHAPTER XI 

THE RENAISSANCE 179 

Humanism 182 

Influence of the Renaissance upon School-v^ork . . 183 

Spread of the Renaissance Movement 184 

CHAPTER XII 

THE REFORMATION .186 

Educational Influence of the Renaissance and the 

Reformation in Northern Europe 187 

The Reformation and the Schools 188 

CHAPTER XIII 

THE CLASSICAL SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTEENTH 

CENTURY 193 

Sturm and the School at Strassburg .... 193 
The Counter Reformation and the Schools of the 
Jesuits 195 

CHAPTER XIV 

EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION UPON THE 

SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND 199 

The Endowment of Schools in England after the 
Reformation 202 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XV 

PAGE 

EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS, RABELAIS, MON- 
TAIGNE 205 

CHAPTER XVI 

THE SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND IN THE SEVEN- 
TEENTH CENTURY 212 

Survival of Clerical Control 216 

Courses of Study, Methods, and Discipline of Seven- 
teenth Century Schools 216 

CHAPTER XVII 

EARLY COLONIAL SCHOOLS IN AMERICA . . 221 

Classes of Colonial Schools 223 

Decline of Colonial Schools 224 

CHAPTER XVIII 
BACON AND THE NEW ERA IN SCIENCE ... 226 

CHAPTER XIX 

SCHOOL REFORMERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 230 

Ratke 230 

comenius 230 

CHAPTER XX 
THE ENLIGHTENMENT 239 

CHAPTER XXI 

ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL WRITERS OF THE 

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . . ... .242 

Milton 242 

Locke 244 

CHAPTER XXII 

THE NON-CONFORMIST MOVEMENT IN ENG- 
LAND; ITS INFLUENCE UPON EDUCATION . 247 
Rise of the Academy .,,,,..,. 247 



CONTENTS XI 
CHAPTER XXIII 

PAGE 

THE PIETISTIC MOVEMENT 250 

Francke 251 

Religious Revival in England and America . . .251 

CHAPTER XXIV 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN 

AMERICA 252 

Franklin 253 

Elementary School Instruction 254 

Charity Schools 256 

Sunday Schools 257 

Recognition of Relation between Universal 

School Education and Political Freedom . . 258 

' CHAPTER XXV 

THE NATURALISTIC MOVEMENT 261 

Rousseau 261 

Influence of Political Revolutions upon School 

Education 264 

CHAPTER XXVI 

PESTALOZZI: HIS LIFE, ITS CIRCUMSTANCES 

AND ITS AIMS 266 

Stanz 267 

Burgdorf, Yverdun 268 

The Nature of Pestalozzi's Services to the Cause of 

School Education 269 

Pestalozzi's Views as to the Nature and Method 

OF Education 271 

Influence of His Work in Europe .... 272 

His Influence upon School-work in America . . 273 

CHAPTER XXVII 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STATE SYSTEMS OF 

SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 275 

The Problem of Financial Support for the Schools . 275 

School Societies 275 

The Monitorial System of Bell and Lancaster . 276 

Sunday Schools , , . . 276 



Xll CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Revival of Interest in Public School Education. 

Horace Mann 277 

Provision for Universal School Education through 

State and Federal Legislation 278 

CHAPTER XXVHI 

DEVELOPMENT OF FREE SECONDARY AND AD- 
VANCED EDUCATION 280 

The High School 280 

The State University 282 

CHAPTER XXIX 

IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL PROCEDURE 

IN SCHOOLS 283 

Froebel 283 

Herbart 288 

Herbartian Influence on American School-work . . 291 

CHAPTER XXX 

INFLUENCE UPON SCHOOL- WORK OF THE DAR- 
WINIAN THEORY OF EVOLUTION .... 293 

CHAPTER XXXI 
GENERAL RESUME 296 

INDEX . .: >, . . . . . . . . r. . 301 



HISTORY OF COMMON 
SCHOOL EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 
THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 

The greater number of the tastes and pursuits that 
characterize us as a civilized people have been passed 
on to us, not from our German or Anglo-Saxon or 
Celtic forefathers, but from a race that flourished two 
or three thousand years ago, chiefly In the lands that 
He within and about the i^gean Sea. Along with 
this civilization we have inherited from them the in- 
stitution by which the sciences and arts which char- 
acterize it are handed down from generation to 
generation, the non-professional school. 

These people, the Greeks, were remarkable for 
their Intellectual keenness and eagerness, and particu- 
larly for their exquisite sensitiveness to beauty and the 
consummate skill which enabled them to gratify It. 
But just as the Greeks were, on the whole, distin- 
guished by these qualities from other races, so were 
the Athenians of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., 
from the other Greeks. It is among the Athenians 
that that Greek culture which has remained the basis 
of the culture of all great subsequent civilizations of 



2 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Europe, Asia Minor, Africa, and America attained 
Its highest development. And it is in the history of 
this people that we first find standing forth clearly 
the prototype of the modern elementary school. In 
stating this it Is not forgotten that the school was not 
made, but grew, and that, in stages more or less em- 
bryonic, It Is found earlier not only among other 
Greek peoples but In the older civilizations of Egypt 
and the Orient to which the Greeks were so much 
Indebted. Nevertheless, beyond the Athenian period 
of the fourth and fifth centuries the story of the 
school becomes relatively vague and discontinuous. 
On the other hand the clearly marked historical con- 
tinuity between the Athenian schools and those of 
to-day, and the similarities existing between these as to 
aim and course of study, seem to distinguish the above 
mentioned period as the most suitable at which to take 
up the study of the modern non-professional school. 
"Greek education," writes Hatch, "passed from 
Greece Into Africa and the West. It had an especial 
hold first on the Roman and then upon the Celtic and 
Teutonic populations of Gaul; and from the Galilean 
schools It has come, probably by direct descent, to our 
own country and our own time." 

THE CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT 

The geographical and other conditions In Greece, 
particularly In those regions lying toward the south 
and the east, were exactly of such character as to favor 
a remarkable efflorescence of human culture. The 
Irregularly Indented shores gave abundant access to 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 3 

the JEgean, whose waters afforded not only communi- 
cation with alien civilizations but free intercourse 
among the numerous Greek states, which, in many 
instances isolated by the mountains or by the sea, had 
maintained a greater or less measure of independence. 

If, as Wordsworth,^ Shaler,^ and others teach, the 
mountains and the sea train and inspire a people to 
the attainment of the blessings of liberty and civiliza- 
tion the marvelous achievements of the Greeks are in 
part at least explained, for probably nowhere do these 
geographical features more abound. It is these which 
account for the small size of the Greek states, and 
this smallness conduced to their rapid political de- 
velopment toward a democracy which exercised in a 
high degree an intellectually stimulating influence 
upon the members of each. " So soon as they [the 
Athenians] got rid of their despots," writes Herodo- 
tus, " they became by far the first of all." 

In accounting for the rise of Greek civilization 
some would add to this peculiar combination of politi- 
cal independence with facility of commercial and cul- 
tural intercourse, the beauty of natural surroundings. 
In Athens these political, commercial, and geographi- 
cal conditions, together with the wealth and leisure 
of the upper class, account in no small measure for 
the development of the brilliant civilization of the 
Periclean age amidst which existed the Greek schools 
concerning which we have most information. 

^ See the sonnet, ' Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of 
Switzerland.' 
^ 'Nature and Man in America,' pp. 28 and 168. 



4 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

The population of Athens was made up of three 
distinct classes : first, the native citizens (the wealthier 
among them being landholders), who jealously re- 
stricted to themselves all political privileges attach- 
ing to membership in the democracy; secondly, aliens 
largely engaged in industry and commerce; thirdly, 
the slaves, who constituted over seventy per cent, of 
the entire population. Amid this population there 
existed three classes of teachers and of schools for 
boys: — the Grammatists, who ta^ight reading and 
writing In the elementary school ; the Citharists, who 
taught in the music school; and the Paedotribes, who 
conducted the physical exercises in the palestra. All 
classes of the people seem to have had more or less 
Instruction in elementary reading and writing. The 
music school seems in the time of Pericles to have 
become an Institution giving secondary instruction, 
and was attended for the most part by the children 
of the leisure classes. 

The origin and development of these schools and 
the character of their courses of study will be in some 
measure explained If we note certain features of the 
social life of the early Greeks. 

EDUCATIONAL FEATURES OF THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE 
EARLY GREEKS LATER ORGANIZED IN THE WORK OF 
THE SCHOOLS 

I. Music. — It Is difficult for us to appreciate the 
importance which the Greeks ascribed to the art of 
music, a composite of arts distinguished by us as 
poetry and music. It was a chief form of entertain- 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 5 

ment In the home and at social gatherings, where the 
lyre was passed from hand to hand as each enter- 
tained the rest with a song. Not only were the 
Greeks peculiarly sensitive to the subtle beauties of 
tone and rhythm but they attached great Importance 
to the content of their poetry. The writings of Plato 
and Aristotle abound In quotations from the poets. 

Among the primitive Greeks the function of the 
poet was not merely to entertain but to Instruct. 
Greek mythology Is largely the result of the attempts 
of the poets to account for natural phenomena by 
ascribing them to the agency of anthropomorphic 
beings. In poetry was embodied their history and 
their science. 

With the development of the Intelligence of the 
Greeks the didactic function of the poet was in part 
usurped by the philosophers, who sought more natural 
causes for physical phenomena. Yet the early philos- 
ophers usually expressed themselves In verse even 
when, as In the case of Xenophanes, they were attack- 
ing the older poetry as teaching serious and harrnful 
errors. 

Moreover, poetry performed much the same func- 
tion among the Greeks as religion with us. Chris- 
tianity is with us so eminently a center of moral In- 
fluence that it Is hard for us to realize that this was 
not so with the religion of the Greeks. Its main pur- 
pose was merely to enable men to avoid the anger of 
the gods. For that moral stimulus and direction that 
we seek in religion the Greek turned to poetry. 

The earliest poets must have recited their own 



6 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

compositions, and in later times " The lyric and 
dramatic poets taught with their own lips the delivery 
of their compositions and so prominently did this 
business of teaching present itself to the view of the 
public that the name Didaskalia, by which dramatic 
composition was commonly designated, derived from 
thence its origin." 

Again music, like gymnastic, had become intimately 
associated with the religion of the Greeks. It became 
an important part of the religious ceremonies in which 
it was incumbent upon all to join. " There existed 
a multitude of sanctuaries in the Greek land," says 
Curtius, " whence issued forth an impulse toward 
mental culture and popular exercise of the mental 
powers. Thus in the land of Arcadia, Artemis 
Hymnia was from a primitive age highly venerated 
by all Arcadians. Her feasts were celebrated with 
song, and from her temple went forth those ordi- 
nances which made the cultivation of music incum- 
bent as a sacred duty upon all the inhabitants of 
the land." 

The importance of music in religion and as a means 
of entertainment in the public and private social life 
of the time, together with its intrinsic worth, embody- 
ing as it did, often in supremely beautiful form, the 
most precious of the culture possessions of the race, 
goes far toward explaining why music was the first of 
the liberal arts to be made an object of systematic 
study by the Greeks, and why the earliest of the insti- 
tutions which grew up among them for the systematic 
instruction of the young were music schools. 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 7 

2. The Declamation and Exposition of the Rhap- 
sodes. — A function similar to that performed by the 
teacher in the music school was performed for the 
general public outside of the school by the rhapsodes. 
In order that their hearers might better appreciate 
the poems which they recited, the rhapsodes were ac- 
customed to preface their performances with explana- 
tions. " Very true, Socrates," says the rhapsode, Ion, 
in Plato, " interpretation has certainly been the most 
laborious part of my art; and I believe myself able 
to speak about Homer better than any man ; and that 
neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus 
of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor any one else who ever 
was, had as good ideas about Homer as I have or as 
many." 

3. The Professional Teaching of Reading and 
Writing hy the Scribes. — In the earliest stages of the 
introduction of the art of letters among a people it is 
usually practised professionally by scribes. Hence 
these would naturally be the first teachers of the art. 
That the profession of the Greek elementary teacher 
is an outgrowth of that of the scribe seems to be in- 
dicated by the fact that he is called by the same name, 
* grammatistes,' i.e. ' scribe.' The word is used in 
this latter sense in Herodotus and elsewhere. Jowett 
translates * Charmides,' 161 D, as follows: "And 
does the scribe write or read, or teach you boys to 
write or read your names only? " 

Demosthenes speaks of the two functions of scribe 
and teacher as being exercised by members of the 
same family. 



8 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Protagoras from being a scribe became an ele- 
mentary teacher. 

4. Military Training and the Sacrificial Games. — 
Other educational features of Greek life which ante- 
dated the school were courses of military training and 
the related athletic games. The cultivation of the 
physical strength and military prowess of its citizens 
was of vital importance to the security of the primi- 
tive Greek state. It was apparently for the more sys- 
tematic and effective prosecution of this work that the 
gymnasium was established. This is the view held 
by Lucian, writing in the second century A.D. He has 
Solon state its purpose to Anacharsis, the Scythian, 
thus, ^'If ever our young men have need to make use 
of their skill in armor they are already experienced. 
It is certainly very evident that a person so trained, 
upon grasping an enemy, will more quickly trip and 
throw him. . . . We provide all these exercises 
for our youth, my friend, in anticipation of a contests 
in arms, and from the fact that they have been fully 
trained, we think that we have for our service better 
men.*' In the sketch of a system of education which 
Plato gives in his * Laws ' he states, ^' Under gym- 
nastics we place all the exercises relating to war." 
The custom was no doubt made more permanent 
through the fact that these exercises became associ- 
ated with the worship of the gods. The steps by 
which this took place are thus described by Curtius, 
*' As then the persons in immediate service of the 
divinity, as the animals and the fruits of the earth 
which were offered up to the gods, were each after its 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 9 

fashion to be of blameless perfection, so, too, was the 
youth of the land, when presenting itself to the gods, 
in their honor joyously to enfold all its gifts of body 
and soul ; while those marked out as the best were to 
receive the sacred wreath as a token of their worthi- 
ness to approach the gods in a pre-eminent degree." 

But it would probably be a mistake to ascribe the 
origin of these different educational institutions to 
single definite sources. The further back these musi- 
cal and gymnastic exercises are traced the more in- 
timate their connection seems to be. The manoeuvers 
performed in honor of the gods were accompanied 
by music and poetry. Grasberger says that the dance 
at sacrifices in honor of the gods was an exercise from 
which developed the gymnastic training of youth, be- 
cause an important influence upon the human heart 
was ascribed to just this union of poetry, music, and 
dance. 

In conclusion it should be noted that each of the 
features of early Greek life which have been m^en- 
tioned is related closely to some one of the schools 
named above. Thus the profession of the grammatist 
probably came into existence through a process of 
differentiation from that of the scribe, while the work 
of the music school was apparently a systematization, 
and adaptation to the needs of the young, of instruc- 
tion which was afforded in earlier times to the people 
as a whole by the poet and possibly by the rhapsode. 
And the work of the palestra was similarly related 
to the military training and religious festival exer- 
cises of the more primitive Greeks. 



10 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 
GENERAL FEATURES OF ATHENIAN SCHOOLS 

In entering upon a more detailed description of 
these elementary schools of the Athenians, it is im- 
portant to note that they seem to have occupied neither 
so large nor so definite a place in the social whole as 
do the schools of our time. Girard says, " It is prob- 
able that the Athenians did not carry into the organ- 
ization of school-work that vigorous attention to 
detail which the customs of modern life and our ex- 
tended programs of study require us to put into it. 
The school, moreover, was not a prison ; one entered 
or left as he wished. In the time of Socrates it was, 
notwithstanding the prohibitions of Solon, a place 
frequented by men of all ages. The children came 
and went among the visitors, whose conversation dis- 
turbed neither their work nor the instruction of the 
master. Their lesson recited, they left or continued 
to study In the company of their comrades without 
being required to consecrate so many hours to gym- 
nastic, so many to music, and so many to literature. 
. . . As for vacations, there were none. . . . 
Their minds not being overwhelmed by study did not 
feel the need of recuperating as after continued and 
excessive labor." 

The elementary schools were invariably private en- 
terprises, receiving no financial support and prac- 
tically no supervision from the State. As regards 
State supervision and regulation and as regards or- 
ganization the work of these schools seems to have 
been about on the same level as the instruction In 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS II 

piano-playing or dancing given to-day. Building and 
equipment varied, of course, according to the amount 
of fees paid by the patrons. * School furniture as 
represented in vase-paintings consists chiefly of stools 
for pupils and assistants and a seat with a back, 
' thronos,' for the master. ^Schools were open from 
dawn to dark. Boys of slave-holding families came 
accompanied by their attendants, the pedagogues. 
Sometimes the pupils met and marched in a body to 
the school. 

There were writing schools for even the poorest 
classes. Protagoras, in his early days, it is said, 
taught boys their letters in the street. 

SOCIAL RANK OF THE TEACHER 

The teachers of these schools seem to have been 
regarded usually as of Inferior social rank. " We 
ourselves," says Aristotle, " treat the professors of 
these arts [singing and playing] as mean people." 
Of one who was missing, the saying in Athens ran, 
^' Either he is dead or has become schoolmaster." 
Luclan represents kings and satraps in hell as de- 
spoiled of their riches and forced to maintain them- 
selves by teaching reading and writing. Epicurus 
complains of Nauslphanes, " He abused me and 
called me a schoolmaster." Demosthenes in attack- 
ing ^schines repeats again and again the fact that 
his father was a schoolmaster, and he Is careful to 
emphasize the fact that he was only assistant and 
that In a school of the lowest order, a reading and 
^vriting school. 



12 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 
EXTENT TO WHICH THE SCHOOLS ARE DIFFERENTIATED 

Some at least of primary schools just referred to 
were evidently distinct from the music schools. This 
is indicated in a passage in Plato, '' And is it not best 
to understand what is said, whether at the writing 
master's or at the music master's or anywhere else 
... as quickly as possible ? " Yet it is probable 
that instruction in letters and music was frequently 
given In the same building and occasionally even by 
the same teacher. Aristophanes writes as if intellec- 
tual education, grammatical and musical, was ob- 
tained in one place and physical training in another, 
" To what teacher's school did you go when a 
child? . . . What style of wrestling did you learn 
In the school of the gymnastic master?" On each 
side of the Douris cup is represented a teacher of let- 
ters and a teacher of music, who is apparently one 
and the same individual. 

COURSE OF STUDY AND METHODS IN THE SCHOOL OF THE 
GRAMMATIST 

The Greeks seem first to have established schools 
for the study of music. Yet, according to Girard, 
" In spite of this anteriority of music it was not with 
It . . . that education began. The child received 
musical Instruction only when he had learned to read 
and write." The Athenian child's school education 
began with the study of letters under the grammatlst. 
The alphabetic method was followed. Fragments of 
a tile have been found In Attica on which are stamped 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 13 

the syllables, ar, bar, gar ; er, ber, ger, etc. The comic 
poet Callias wrote a letter play in which the dramatis 
persona were the letters of the alphabet. It con- 
tained a spelling chorus which seems to have been a 
reminiscence of school experiences; beta, alpha, ba; 
beta, ei, be; beta, eta, be, etc. Similarly on the body 
of a bottle-shaped vase, around the foot of which 
was printed the alphabet, were the following letter 
combinations : — bibabube, gigaguge, zizazuze, mima- 
mume, pipapupe, etc. Some authorities consider this 
a charm ; others believe it to be one of the school ex- 
ercises in proauJicia.tion. 

The pupil learned to write by tracing and later 
copying the exercise set up for him by the master. 
Both wax tablets and papyrus were used as writing 
material. The art of calculation, hindered by their 
cumbersome system of notation, never attained among 
the Greeks a high degree of development. Yet the 
strong commercial bent of the Athenians necessitated 
some arithmetical training. " Boy — bring forth my 
tablets," says Strepsiades in Aristophanes' ' Clouds,' 
** that I may read to how many I am indebted and cal- 
culate the interest." We have no direct evidence that 
arithmetic was taught in the Athenian elementary 
schools, but the emphasis laid upon it by such theorists 
as Plato makes it probable that such was the case. 

As soon as the pupil had acquired some ability in 
understanding written words the teacher gave him 
verses to read selected from the best poets. The art 
of letters was apparently so great an aid In the study 
of the national poetry that after the establishment of 



14 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

schools for reading, the teaching, at least of some of 
the non-lyrical poetry, passed from the hands of the 
music teacher or citharist into those of the gram- 
matist. Girard says, " The oldest, no doubt, was 
musical instruction, which, in time, became compli- 
cated and to which were added reading and writing, 
then the intensive study of the poets in such a manner 
that literature was only an extension of music. Under 
these conditions it was natural that they should not 
be separated and that the same school should offer to 
both a common aslyum.'* " When the boy has 
learned his letters," writes Plato, " and is beginning 
to understand what is written, as before he only 
understood what was spoken, they put into his hands 
the works of the great poets." The large place 
which poetry filled in the higher life of the Greeks 
has already been noted. 

On the Douris cup it is the teacher of poetry who 
occupies the high-backed seat of honor, the * thronos.' 
The scarcity and the high price of books, all of which, 
of course, were manuscript, necessitated methods dif- 
ferent from those of the modern school. The pupils 
frequently made their own texts, copying from the 
dictation of the teacher. Much time and effort were 
devoted to the memorizing of poems and selections. 
In these exercises the pupil seems to have stood before 
the grammatlst, who with open roll before him dic- 
tated verse by verse the passage to be memorized. 
The vase paintings support this view and Indicate 
further that the pupil reads as Plato states (see p. 
1 6) while "sitting on a bench," this posture being 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 15 

necessitated, possibly, by the cumbersome character 
of the roll of manuscript. The passages learned 
under the grammatist were often of a monitory char- 
acter. " In these," continues Plato, " are contained 
many admonitions, many tales and praises and en- 
comia of famous men which he is required to learn 
by heart." Literary masterpieces were not neglected. 
Xenophon speaks of one who at school had memo- 
rized the whole of the Homeric poems. 

In the selection of reading matter great freedom 
was exercised. Not only the great epic and didactic 
poems were used, but later also comedy, tragedy, and 
prose. But of all, the poems of Homer were by far 
the most extensively used. The simplicity of the 
social and political life which they depicted, the rich 
variety of character, of incident, and of emotional 
situations, the rarity of comment, the abundant refer- 
ences to the history, the geographical environment, 
the theology, and folklore of the Greeks, and the 
poetic beauty of the whole gave these poems the first 
place in the curricula of the schools. Various pas- 
sages show that their value was fully recognized by 
the Athenians. Plato speaks of " Eulogists of Homer 
declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, 
and that he is profitable for education and for the 
ordering of human things, and that you should take 
him up again and again and get to know him.'* 

Among Greek as among modern teachers opin- 
ions differed as to the relative advantages of teach- 
ing a few entire poems or numerous selections. 
Plato In his 'Laws' speaks of those who advo- 



1 6 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

cated getting " whole poets by heart " and of 
others who believed in " selecting — from all." 
Collections similar to those of our modern readers 
were widely used. One of the most popular of 
these purported to be a selection made by Chiron 
for Achilles. Hesiod was believed to have put it 
into verse. A curious proof of its popularity is 
afforded by a painted Greek vase in the museum at 
Berlin, which represents a boy reading from a half- 
opened volume to two others who seem much in- 
terested. On a cubical coffer before the leader is 
another roll on which is written * Chironeia/ and 
on the coffer beneath is the word ' kale.' 

THE WORK OF THE MUSIC SCHOOL 

When the pupil had acquired some ability to read 
and write he took up, in addition to the study of 
literature under the grammatist, also the study of 
music with the citharist. The work of the primitive 
music school, as already noted, seems gradually to 
have differentiated into vocal and instrumental music 
on the one hand (the latter almost exclusively for 
purposes of accompaniment) and into the intensive 
study of poetry on the other. Thus, where the duties 
of the grammatist and the citharist were performed 
by two different persons, each seems to have taught 
literature. This is clearly what is stated in Plato. 
" And when the boy has learned his letters and is 
beginning to understand what is written . . . they 
put into his hands the work of the great poets, which 
he reads sitting on a bench at school. . . . Then 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 1 7 

again the teachers of the lyre take similar care that 
their young disciple is temperate and gets into no 
mischief; and when they have taught him the use of 
the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other ex- 
cellent poets, who are lyric poets; and these they set 
to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms 
quite familiar to the children's souls." The gram- 
matist, apparently, taught literature in so far as it 
was read, while the citharist taught the poetry which 
was usually sung. 

There were writing schools for the poor as well as 
for the rich. The work of the music school being 
of a more purely cultural character, these institutions 
were attended for the most part by the comparatively 
well-to-do classes. Plato makes Protagoras say after 
describing the school work in music, " This is what 
Is done by those that have the means, and those that 
have the means are the rich; their children begin to 
go to school soonest and leave off latest." 

Recalling what has already been said as to the Im- 
portance attached by the Greeks to the content of 
their poetry, it will be seen that its study under either 
teacher would involve that of other subjects of the 
modern school curriculum. The study of the second 
book of the Iliad would constitute, for instance, some- 
thing of a course in geography. The whole poem 
was held by the Greeks to be a compendium of their 
history. Spartans and Athenians, for example, 
quoted precedents from Homer in their dispute with 
the Syracusans as to who should lead in the expedi- 
tion against the Persians. Says Grasberger: '* Even 



1 8 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

a certain amount of scientific knowledge in geography 
and astronomy, and especially the most important 
facts of history, were imparted to the youthful mind 
in the schools of antiquity through the works of the 
poets." 

Interesting light is thrown on the method of teach- 
ing instrumental and vocal music, by vase paintings, 
particularly those on the Douris cup in the Berlin 
Antiquarium. Teacher and pupil, each with his lyre, 
sit facing each other, the former illustrating, the latter 
imitating and practising. So also on the vase of Pis- 
toxenos. In a painting on one of the London am- 
phorae (Girard, p. iii) the pupil is apparently ac- 
companying the teacher, who is singing. The words 
are naively pictured issuing from his lips. 

THE TRAINING IN THE PALESTRA 

An important characteristic of Greek school educa- 
tion was the careful attention paid to the physical 
training of the young. Though this probably had its 
origin in the military necessities of the people (see 
p. 8) , the work came to be valued for its effect upon 
the morals and even the artistic tastes of the young. 
Plato suggests that the young are sent " to the master 
of gymnastic in order that their bodies may better 
minister to a virtuous mind and that they might not be 
compelled through bodily weakness to play the cow- 
ard in war or on any other occasion." The palestrae, 
unlike the gymnasia, were private institutions and 
were often named after their proprietors. Here the 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS I9 

young Athenians were trained in running, wrestling, 
jumping, and in throwing the discus and the javelin. 

CENTERS OF EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE OUTSIDE OF THE 
SCHOOL 

With the conclusion of the work in the palestra the 
boy of the more aristocratic class passed from under 
the guardianship of the pedagogue and entered upon 
a course of systematic physical training in the gym- 
nasium. His work in the music school having been 
concluded, such intellectual training as he received 
was derived from listening to the discussions of phi- 
losophers and others in the gymnasia and other pub- 
lic places, from attendance at the theater, in the law 
courts, the assembly, public ceremonies, and from 
other sources of educational influence in which Athens 
was peculiarly rich, ^schines in his oration against 
Ctesiphon says, " It is not, men of Athens, you know 
it well, it is not the palestra, the seminary, or the 
study of liberal arts alone, which form and educate 
our youth. Of vastly greater value are the lessons 
taught by the honors publicly conferred ! '* Some of 
the sources of this extra-school education are referred 
to by Lucian. '' We instruct them thoroughly in the 
common laws. These laws we have transcribed in 
large letters and have set them up in public places for 
all to read. The inscriptions give orders concern- 
ing that which it is fitting and proper for young men 
to do and that from which they should abstain. Fur- 
ther we urge upon them to seek the companionship of 
the noblest and best men of the State, from whom 



^0 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDtlCATlON 

they learn to speak properly, to act justly. . . . 
We also assemble the young men in the theater and 
by the influence of tragedy and comedy publicly train 
them to contemplate both the virtues and the vices of 
their ancestors that they may turn from the latter and 
may seek eagerly to emulate the former.'* 

THE NEW EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY AND 
HIGHER SCHOOLS 

During the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. changes 
were taking place in the political and social life of 
Athens which not only modified elementary educa- 
tion, but led to the development of a system of ad- 
vanced education analogous to that of the modern 
university. The Athenian had been guided in his 
conduct by following social and religious tradition 
and the laws of the state. The excitements of dan- 
ger and of triumph in the Persian wars resulted not 
only in an intensifying of national consciousness, but 
in an increased consciousness of the worth of the indi- 
vidual. In individual and in corporate life men were 
guided less and less by tradition and more and more 
by their individual thoughts and desires. This af- 
fected school education as it did other features of 
social life. The traditional course of study was no 
longer so closely adhered to. Even during the fifth 
century changes had crept in which excited alarm and 
displeasure. Aristophanes in the ' Clouds ' compares 
unfavorably the newer with the older school music. 
" Their master would teach them, not sitting cross- 
legged, to learn by rote a song, either ' Pallas, Ter- 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 21 

rible Destroyer of Cities ' or ' The Shout Sounding 
Far,' raising to a higher pitch the harmonies which 
our fathers transmitted to us. But If any one were 
to play the buffoon, or turn any quavers like these 
difficult turns the present artists make after the man- 
ner of PhrynIs, he used to be thrashed and beaten 
with many blows, as banishing the Muses." Never- 
theless the modification of the existing course accord- 
ing to the felt needs of the time continued. By the 
middle of the fourth century drawing, geometry, and 
the related sciences had been added to the reading, 
writing, literature, and music of the old curriculum, 
while from the study of literature had branched off 
the subject of grammar, in the narrower sense of 
the term. 

Another and much later result of this Intellectual 
awakening was the organization of a more advanced 
education In the schools of philosophy and rhetoric, 
which later united to form institutions of higher 
learning, the so-called ' universities ' of Athens, 
Rhodes, and elsewhere. 

THE SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY 

Just as many to-day would fear the effect upon 
public and private morality of a general disbelief in 
a future life of retribution or reward, so many of the 
more thoughtful among the Athenians were alarmed 
at the growing disregard of the traditional safeguards 
of conduct. It was partly In an attempt to supply a 
substitute for these that Socrates Inaugurated a new 
movement in philosophy. Truth, he believed, is a 



22 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

safe and sure guide to conduct. And this truth lies 
within the grasp of every man, although it can be 
attained only through painstaking effort. A fruitful 
source of error and evil conduct has been that men 
have been too indolent to search out the truth and 
content to be guided by mere opinion. The truths 
that are a safe guide in conduct, he held, are those 
that apply not simply in particular instances, but in 
all cases. In other words, the most important truths 
are the general truths. The process of eliminating 
from our thought what was merely individual and 
accidental was facilitated through the mutual criticism 
of the dialogue. Hence with the general purpose in 
view of aiding others as well as himself he was 
apparently ready to discuss anywhere with any one 
any topic the discussion of which promised to con- 
tribute to the sifting out of truth from error. 

His follower, Plato, on the other hand, arranged 
his teachings into something like a system and taught 
in a definite place, the Academy. At his death his 
disciples constituted so organized a body that he was 
able to bequeath the headship over them to Speu- 
sippus, his nephew. Fees were collected by the latter, 
buildings were erected, classes organized, and a defi- 
nite school of philosophy, the Academy, came into 
existence. Similarly in the same city somewhat later, 
other schools of philosophy sprang up, the Peripa- 
tetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean, founded by Aris- 
totle, Zeno, and Epicurus, respectively. 

These four schools together with those of the 
rhetoricians, which will be discussed later and which in 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS ^3 

a similar manner seem to have become resident per- 
manent institutions, formed the nucleus of what after- 
wards became under the Roman empire something 
like a great national university. For this reason and 
because one or the other of these philosophical sys- 
tems influenced more or less directly the school-work 
of subsequent times, mention will be made here of one 
or two of the characteristics of each. 

Socrates' opinion as to the great importance of 
general ideas was much elaborated by his disciple, 
Plato, the founder of the Academic school. While 
the former held that the wholly true universally 
valid concepts could be found by merely culling out 
from thought all that was individual and accidental, 
Plato, in his suggestive, semi-poetical manner, ascribes 
to them self-substantial separate reality. They are 
the true realities of which individual things are but 
the imperfect copies, and they existed before the lat- 
ter. Being such they were to be attained not through 
the com.parison and elimination of the qualities of in- 
dividual things but through a process of speculative 
intuition. 

To Aristotle, the founder of the Peripatetic school 
and the greatest and most influential of all ancient 
philosophers, truth was to be arrived at through the 
investigation of individual things. General concepts 
do not exist independently of individuals but in them. 
This question as to the relative reality of individuals 
or classes on which Plato and his pupil Aristotle dif- 
fered became the center of philosophical discussion 
during the scholastic period of the Middle Ages. 



24 HISTORY OF COM.MON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Aristotle, in addition to many other philosophical and 
scientific achievements, summed up, supplemented, 
and systematized the results of the labors of his prede- 
cessors in the art of arriving at the truth through 
reasoned argument in the new science of logic, his 
treatise on which has ever since remained the stand- 
ard on that subject. Though the Peripatetic school 
waned after the death of its founder, the writings 
of Aristotle have exerted a predominant influence 
upon the thought of succeeding times. To the 
mediaeval scholastics he vv^as the infallible authority 
on things worldly as were the Scriptures and the 
church on spiritual questions. 

Of the remaining schools, the Stoic, founded by 
Zeno, was the most important both in its influence 
upon conduct and in its relation to non-professional 
education. In order that he might reach not merely 
the select few but the masses, Zeno established him- 
self not in the retirement of the groves of the Acad- 
emy or the Lyceum as did Plato and Aristotle, re- 
spectively, but in the ' Stoa Poikile ' in the center of 
the busy life of the city. The most eminent repre- 
sentative of Stoicism was Chrysippus, the third head 
of the school. To the Stoic the great end of life was 
virtue, which he defined as living in conformity with 
nature or with natural law. The attainment of this 
end involved a course of study, for in order to live in 
conformity with nature it is necessary first to learn 
to know nature through the study of physics. After 
we have acquired these facts about nature we must 
be able to use them in arriving at general truths or 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 25 

principles. The ability to do this is acquired in the 
study of logic. Finally we must learn through the 
study of ethics to apply these truths In matters of 
conduct. Like Socrates the Stoics found a source of 
wrong conduct in the workings of men's minds. In- 
stead of their actions being controlled by the intel- 
lectual truths just referred to they were misdirected 
by the passions. Hence the wise man Is he who ig- 
nores the emotions and is guided In his acts solely by 
his intellectual Insight. 

To Epicurus, the founder of the Epicurean school, 
the great end of life lay in the securing of happiness. 
True happiness, however, was to be found only in 
practice of reflective insight, that is, of virtue. 

EDUCATIONAL THEORISTS 

Plato and Aristotle are among the earliest writ- 
ers on education. The former, in his ' Republic,' 
sketches an ideal system of education. He Investi- 
gates the philosophical principles which make music 
and gymnastic important means of education. By 
means of these principles he determines what of 
music and gymnastic should be utilized and what re- 
jected in the education of the young and what relation 
should exist between these two branches. Poems 
which ascribe vices to the gods or In any way expose 
them to disrespect are to be rejected. Musical modes 
soft and convivial like the Ionian and Lydian, or 
mournful like the Mixo-Lydlan, are to give place to 
those which properly imitate the tones and Inflections 
of a brave man in the act of war, etc. Due propor- 



26 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

tion is to be maintained between music and gymnastic, 
and the latter is to contribute not merely to physical 
but to mental development. 

The titles of the works in which Plato and Aris- 
totle discuss education, the * Republic ' and ^ Politics,' 
respectively, indicate that they consider it as merely a 
feature of the life of men organized into a state. In 
Aristotle's opinion education should be public, i.e. 
regulated by the state, and it should be liberal, not 
restricted by the requirements of some profession. 
Its great service is that it fits one for the profitable 
employment of leisure. In his discussion of the 
course of study — letters, gymnastics, music, and draw- 
ing — he does not differ essentially from Plato. 

THE SOPHISTS AND THE SCHOOLS OF RHETORIC 

At the age of eighteen the young Athenians of all 
but the poorest class entered as ephebes upon the two 
years' course in military training provided by the 
state. The frequent drills of this period, the marches 
to the frontier, the sojourn in camps and forts, and 
the police and sentry duties still left the ephebes a 
good deal of leisure to profit by the educational op- 
portunities which life in Athens afforded. 

Owing to certain political and social changes, how- 
ever, this unsystematized intellectual culture became 
inadequate. As membership in the legislative assem- 
bly was extended to all citizens and as the decision of 
disputes at law was handed over to one or another 
of the bodies of five hundred ordinary citizens, the 
young Athenians began to realize keenly the need of 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 27 

systematic training in the art of oratory and of de- 
bate. Hence when teachers appeared who professed 
to give this training their services were eagerly 
sought. They are known in our time as the sophists. 
Plato describes two sophists as " most skilful in legal 
warfare ; they will plead themselves and teach others 
to speak and to compose speeches which will have an 
effect upon the courts." Again Plato represents the 
sophist Protagoras as saying of a young man am- 
bitious of political preferment who sought instruc- 
tion from the latter, " If he comes to me he will learn 
that which he comes to learn. And this is prudence in 
affairs private as well as public; he will learn to order 
his own house in the best manner, and he will be able 
to speak and act in affairs of state." At first they 
gave only individual instruction, chiefly in rhetoric and 
dialectic, but gradually the number of subjects taught 
increased and their work was organized into that of 
definite institutions of learning, the rhetorical schools. 
(See Cicero, ^ Brutus,' chap, viii.) The amalgamation 
of these schools of philosophy and rhetoric into an 
institution resembling somewhat a modern university, 
took place by slow stages and was consummated only 
after Athens had become incorporated in the Roman 
empire. 

Unfortunately the organization of the schools of 
philosophy, while economizing the effort devoted to 
teaching and learning, seemed to restrict originality 
of thought. In the rhetorical schools less and less 
attention was paid to training to meet the demands of 
actual life; indeed with the political subjection of 



28 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Athens to Macedonia In the fourth, and to Rome In 
the second century, the needs which had led to the 
establishment of these schools lost their urgency. 
The schools of philosophy turned from original In- 
vestigation of great problems to the exposition of the 
views of their respective founders. The schools 
grew, however, In numbers. The same conquests 
which had cost Athens her political Independence 
enormously widened the Influence of her culture. 
^' Out of the ruins of the Macedonian universal em- 
pire there grew up five monarchies in which Greek was 
the language of the court and the government, of In- 
scriptions and coinage, and of the educated classes, 
and In some of which Grecian art, literature, and 
learning reached a high development." With the 
loss of military power and independence Athens clave 
the more closely to that which still was left, her posi- 
tion as the world's great center of culture. With her 
freedom the age of great Inspiration had passed away 
forever, but It was succeeded by an age only less bril- 
liant of savants, of commentators, of rhetoricians and 
sophists. " These," says Petit de Julleville, " seemed 
to make their rendezvous at Athens from the ex- 
tremities of the earth, attracted, no doubt, by her 
famous name, her glorious history; her boasted monu- 
ments and the memory still living of so many great 
men; but sensible also to the beauty of situation, the 
charm of climate, to the politeness of manners, to the 
pleasures of all kinds which this city, freed of ordi- 
nary business cares, offered to the prolonged leisure 
of Its Inhabitants." With them came great numbers 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 29 

of Students from many different foreign countries. 
Prominent among the student body were the ephebes 
of Athens. This body had meanwhile been under- 
going great changes. The poHtlcal misfortunes of 
Athens had made It Increasingly difficult for any but 
the wealthiest young men to devote two years to 
military training. As Athens sank Into the position 
of a mere province the custom became of less and 
less practical Importance. Hence the period was re- 
duced from two years to one, later service was made 
entirely voluntary and the ephebic body became cor- 
respondingly few In number and aristocratic In char- 
acter. Later still, foreigners, presumably of great 
wealth, were admitted. With the waning of the Im- 
portance of Athens In world politics and the centering 
of the patriotic pride of her citizens upon her rank as 
a center of learning, attendance at the famous schools 
came to be prescribed as part of the duties of the 
ephebic year. With the further development of the 
university the ephebic body degenerated Into some- 
thing similar to a modern students' society. 

The combination of the different schools Into a 
single Institution and the recognition of this as a 
great Imperial university would naturally be fur- 
thered by the favor and support of the Imperial gov- 
ernment, especially during the reigns of Hadrian and 
the Antonlnes. After several periods of alternating 
decline and revival the university was finally closed in 
529 A.D. by Justinian. 



30 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 
RESUME ON THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS 

The work of the Greek non-professional schools 
consisted essentially of an organization of educational 
influences and activities that had long been operating 
in the family and in the general social life of the 
people. The school did not supplant, but merely sup- 
plemented, the earlier educational institutions. 

The centers of cultural influence in ancient Athens, 
and particularly during the fifth and fourth centuries 
B.C., were unusually numerous and powerful. The 
culture of the Greeks was to a greater extent native 
than is the case with that of modern civilized peo- 
ples of Western Europe and America. It was not 
associated with a foreign tongue. For these reasons 
the school was probably not even so essential a factor 
in education in Athens as it is in modern civilization. 

The schools of the Athenians did not have the 
elaborate organization of the modern public school. 
Those schools which gave more than elementary in- 
struction in reading and writing were attended only 
by the children of a small proportion of the popula- 
tion. 

Teachers, both elementary and secondary, seem to 
have been of inferior social rank. 

The two most powerful factors in determining the 
character of the course of study in the schools were, 
on the one hand, the tendency to give the child such 
instruction and training as would best adjust him to 
the social conditions amidst which he was to live, and, 
on the other, a tendency to be guided by tradition. 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE GREEKS 31 

The preponderance of the latter resulted in the 
maintenance of the so-called * old education.' The 
preponderance of the former during the period of 
intellectual awakening that followed the close of 
the Persian wars led to the growth of the * new 
education.' 

This free adaptation of school-work to actual needs 
not only modified the course of study of the second- 
ary schools, but brought into existence new educa- 
tional institutions, the schools of the sophists. 



CHAPTER II 
THE SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA 

The conquests of Alexander disseminated the 
Greek civilization, which had reached its highest de- 
velopment in Athens, throughout much of Asia and 
Africa. As a result important centers of learning 
grew up in Pergamon, Rhodes, Alexandria, and else- 
where. In Alexandria Greek culture underwent cer- 
tain modifications which it is important for us to note 
in tracing the history of our non-professional schools. 

The Conditions Afecting Alexandrian Culture. — 
The cultural activities of this later Alexandrian 
period were strikingly different from those of the age 
of Pericles. 

The difference was due to the decidedly different 
conditions under which they were carried on. The 
supreme achievements of the Athenians in art, litera- 
ture, and philosophy were the work of a free people. 
The poets and thinkers of Alexandria were under a 
despotism which made spontaneity of expression im- 
possible. The poetry and art, science and philosophy 
of Athens were the product of impulses shared in by 
the mass of the citizens. In Alexandria culture was 
confined chiefly to a relatively small class, for the 
most part foreign to the country and patronized by 
the court. The tone of life in Athens was determined 

32 



THE SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA 33 

by one race, the Athenians. In Alexandria Greeks 
stood with Jews and other Oriental peoples on a 
similar footing. Finally, some attach importance to the 
fact that the great Athenians lived In a region abound- 
ing in natural beauty, a feature wanting to the sandy 
shores on which Alexandria was built. Says Ma- 
haffy, " But if as a commercial site Alexandria was 
unrivaled, we cannot say much for its natural beauty. 
A sandy region, without wooding, without hills, and 
a tideless sea, but with no far mountains or islands 
in sight — what could be more dreary to those accus- 
tomed to the enchanting views from the Greek and 
Asiatic coast towns? We know that the Greeks of 
classical days said little about the picturesque. Never- 
theless its unconscious effect upon their poetry and 
upon other forms of art is clearly discernible, and 
perhaps not a little of the unplcturesqueness of Alex- 
andrian culture is due to the absence of this vague 
but powerful influence. The grandeur of solemn 
mountains, the mystery of deep forests, the sweet 
homeliness of babbling streams, the scent of deep 
meadov/s and fragrant shrubs, all this was familiar 
even to the city people of Hellenic days. . . . 
But the din and the dust of the new capital . . . 
were only relieved by a few town parks and gym- 
nasia. . . . And, If there was retirement and 
leisure within the university, it was eminently the re- 
tirement among books — the natural home for pedants 
and grammarians." 

These conditions account for the fact that we find 
in Alexandrian literature, excepting perhaps Theoc- 



34 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ritus, little evidence of true poetic inspiration; the 
poetry Is imitative and self-conscious. 

The Alexandrian School and the Character of Its 
Work. — Of the elementary and secondary school 
work at Alexandria we have no record. It was prob- 
ably of little importance, for the mass of the people 
were non-Greek. The great influence of Alexandria 
upon the culture and school-work of Rome and of 
later times was the result of the work of the mem- 
bers of a relatively small and exclusive body of 
scholars and writers, chiefly Greek, living and work- 
ing under the patronage of the Ptolemies In a great 
Institution of learning known as the Museum. The 
circumstances under which they worked were, as 
shown above, unfavorable to original literary or 
artistic achievement. Their most Important contribu- 
tions to literature are due to the attention they 
paid to the collection, arrangement, and critical 
study of the great productions of the earlier Greek 
civilization. 

The first Ptolemy, possibly at the suggestion of his 
friend, Demetrius, and influenced, perhaps, by the 
aims of his former master, Alexander the Great, 
founded a great library in which he collected the writ- 
ings of the Greeks and of other civilized peoples. 
With this was connected later a corporation of 
learned men supported by royal endowment. " The 
Museum,'' says Strabo, " Is a part of the palaces. 
It has a public hall and a place furnished with seats, 
and a large hall, In which the men of learning, who 
belong to the Museum, take their common meal. 



THE SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA 35 

This community possessed also property in common ; 
and a priest, formerly appointed by the kings, but at 
present by Caesar, presides over the Museum." If, 
as some believe, some of these took up the work of 
teaching, the whole institution would resemble some- 
what a modern university. The bringing together 
of so many manuscripts containing varying versions 
of the works of classical authors led to great critical 
activity. Here were produced the first critical editions 
of Homer. Through this intensive study of classical 
literature the sciences of grammar and philology were 
brought to a high degree of development. Thus was 
formed a body of literary and grammatical erudition 
which constituted a large proportion of the material 
of instruction in the schools of Rome and of sub- 
sequent civilizations. 

Of no less importance were the achievements of the 
Alexandrian scholars in pure mathematics and in 
the natural sciences. Here was completed Euclid's 
treatise on geometry, used even up to the present as a 
school text. Here the science of algebra was de- 
veloped by Diophantus, and here also important dis- 
coveries in mechanics, geography, astronomy, and 
anatomy were made by Hero, Archimedes, Eratos- 
thenes, Herophilos, and others. The scientific lore 
of the schools of Roman and later times owed, prob- 
ably, its form and substance more to Alexandria than 
to any other ancient center of culture. 

The peculiar culture conditions at Alexandria led, 
In the first and second centuries A.D., to its becoming 
the first great center of higher Christian theological 



36 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

education. Here we find the greatest of those early 
Christian schools of theology, the successors of which 
throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages per- 
formed in society the function of the general non- 
professional school. 



CHAPTER III 
THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 

Although this elaboration of Greek culture 
which took place in Alexandria powerfully influ- 
enced the school-work of later times, nevertheless 
the further history of the schools for the young, the 
development of which in Athens we have already 
noted, is to be traced out, not in Alexandria, but in 
Rome. 

A narrow but powerful system of extra-school edu- 
cation and an elementary school for giving instruc- 
tion, mainly in reading and writing and possibly cal- 
culation, had developed among the Romans, in the 
main, independently of the direct influence of the 
Greeks, though, of course, the Roman alphabet, 
among other things, was derived from early inter- 
course with the latter race. A brief account of this 
education of the early Romans and of the conditions 
to which it owed its character will prepare us for the 
discussion of the secondary school education which 
they adopted from the Greeks. 

EARLY EXTRA-SCHOOL EDUCATION AMONG THE ROMANS 

Like the Greeks, the Romans dwelt upon a penin- 
sula extending southward into the Mediterranean 
Sea. Unlike Greece, however, the country faced the 

37 



38 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL Et)tf CATION 

west rather than the east. " The Italian peninsula," 
says Mommsen, " resembles the Grecian in the tem- 
perature and wholesome air that prevail on the hills 
of moderate height, and on the whole, also, in the 
valleys and plains. In the development of coast it 
is inferior; it wants, in particular, the island-studded 
sea which made the Hellenes a seafaring nation. 
Italy, on the other hand, excels its neighbor in the 
rich alluvial plains and the fertile and grassy moun- 
tain slopes, which are requisite for agriculture and the 
rearing of cattle. Like Greece, it is a noble land 
which calls forth and rewards the energies of man, 
opening up alike for restless adventure the way to 
distant lands and for quiet exertion modes of peace- 
ful gain at home." 

In several respects the national characteristics of 
the early Romans stand out in strong contrast to 
those of the Athenians. The heroes who figure in 
Roman folk-lore, — Regulus, Brutus, Horatius, Cin- 
cinnatus, — are embodiments of the ideals which to a 
greater or less degree molded the lives of the early 
Romans. With them the sense of duty was a strong 
motive to action and this gave to the life and char- 
acter of the old Roman a peculiar dignity. While 
the aspirations of the pleasure-loving Greek centered 
more and more about the individual, those of the 
Roman centered more in the family and the state. 
The intense, though silent, pride in family which pre- 
vailed among the Romans, and its great educational 
significance, are well illustrated in their peculiar 
funeral customs. The masks of famous ancestors 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 39 

adorned the walls of the home. Upon the death of the 
head of the family, actors or others, each wearing the 
mask and the official robes of some ancestor, mounted 
chariots and joined the funeral procession to the 
forum. " There the corpse was placed in an upright 
position; the ancestors descended from their chariots 
and seated themselves in the curule chairs, and the 
son or the nearest gentile kinsman of the deceased 
ascended the rostrum in order to announce to the as- 
sembled multitude in simple recital the names and the 
deeds of each of the men sitting in a circle around him, 
and last of all, those of him who had recently died." 
Within the household the father possessed sov- 
ereign power, extending even to power of life and 
death over his children. The mother occupied a 
position of dignity in society. She was not, as among 
the Greeks, confined to the seclusion of the woman's 
apartments. As the husband was the master, so was 
the wife the mistress of the family. Her place was in 
the chief apartment of the house, where she sat di- 
recting the work of her servants. She appeared with- 
out fear in public. Everywhere she was treated with 
respect. Under such parents the Roman boy acquired 
discipline of manners, knowledge of the language, 
and the essentials of the historical and religious folk- 
lore of the race. He accompanied his father to the 
field, to the forum, to the house of a friend, to the 
public festival, and to the council hall. Here he ac- 
quired a knowledge of and a taste for those duties 
to family and country upon the successful perform- 
ance of which were concentrated the energies of 



40 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

the early Romans. " Among our ancestors," writes 
Pliny, " one learned not only through the ears but 
through the eyes. The young in observing the elders, 
learned what they would soon have to do themselves 
and what they would one day teach to their suc- 
cessors." The instruction was thus direct and prac- 
tical. No thought was given to intellectual culture 
for its own sake. The Roman despised the luxury 
of the mind as he did that of the body. " The per- 
manent intercommunion of life between father and 
son and the mutual reverence felt by adolescence for 
ripened manhood, and by the mature man for the 
innocence of youth, lay at the root of the steadfast- 
ness of the domestic and political traditions, of the 
closeness of the family bond, and in general the grave 
earnestness [gravitas] and character of moral worth 
in Roman life." Admirable as this method of edu- 
cation may seem, it is important to note that it made 
impossible the attainment of a high degree of culture. 
Physical training was, of course, not neglected 
among a military people as were the Romans, but it 
was characteristically direct and practical in char- 
acter. Practice with the sword and the javelin, in 
swimming and running, in wielding the ax, and in 
bearing burdens was carried on not to develop sym- 
metrically the body, but to develop efficiency in v/ar. 
Cicero says of Greek gymnasium training, " Among 
the Greeks, on the contrary, what an absurd system 
of training youth is exhibited in their gymnasia ! 
What a frivolous preparation for the labors and haz- 
ards of Yt^arl " 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 41 

The Beginning of Elementary School Instruction 
among the Romans. — It was this strong practical 
sense that led the Roman to adopt at an early period 
the arts of reading, writing, and calculation. The 
Roman books of oracles, the clan registers, and the 
Alban and Roman calendars are of great antiquity. 
The story of Virginia and the custom of setting up in 
public places tablets of stone or brass on which were 
engraved laws or treaties seem to Indicate that these 
fundamental arts had become subjects of general non- 
professional Instruction in the fifth century B.C. Of 
the earliest stages of the instruction in these arts 
we have very little information. In these as In other 
matters the father seems at first to have been the 
Instructor. Scipio in Cicero's ' Commonwealth ' re- 
fers to his father as his teacher and Indicates the 
practical character of the instruction he received. 
" Regard me,'' he says, " as a true Roman, not il- 
liberally Instructed by the care of my father and In- 
flamed with the desire of knowledge, even from my 
boyhood, but still even more familiar v/ith domestic 
precepts and practices than the literature of books." 

Probably the pressure of other duties led wealthy 
parents to hand over this work to an educated slave or 
freedman, and those of moderate means to send their 
children for this elementary Instruction to the schools 
of the llterators. These were usually foreigners or 
freedmen of the lowest rank of society. The thrifty 
Cato let out his educated slaves for hire as teachers. 
The llterators seem to have derived only a miserable 
pittance from their labors. The Romans seem to have 



42 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

looked down with profounder disdain than did even 
the Athenians upon the salaried professions. Hence 
the teachers were supported at first by gifts. This cus- 
tom did not die out even when fixed fees became the 
rule. This prejudice accounts for the fact that some 
teachers " never haggled about remuneration but 
generally left It to the liberality of their scholars." 
Plutarch states that the first school teacher to make 
a fixed charge was Spurlus CarvUIus, a freedman. 

As among the Greeks, the housing and equipment 
of the school seem to have varied with the wealth 
and station of the pupils. The houses of even the 
wealthy Romans were as a rule flanked on the ground 
floor by shops opening on the street. The ceilings 
of these shops being often very high, the upper half 
was sometimes floored off and rented separately. 
The apartments thus formed were known as ' per- 
gulae.' Teachers frequently rented for school pur- 
poses such rooms as these. Hangings were used to 
separate the school from the stir and noise of the 
street. A Pompelan fresco shows that In some In- 
stances schools were located In porticoes. It was 
probably on account of their location In public places 
that they were called ' trivial schools ' ; hence also 
the complaints as to the disturbance they created. 

The Character of Roman Elementary School In- 
struction. — There seems to have been no essential 
difference between the Roman and the Greek methods 
of teaching the elementary reading, writing, and 
arithmetic which constituted the course of study in 
these schools. DIonysius of Hallcarnassus, who spent 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 43 

twenty years of the first century B.C. In Rome, gives 
what Is perhaps the clearest and most concise ac- 
count of the method of teaching beginners to read. 
" When we learned to read was It not necessary at 
first to know the names of the letters, their shape, 
their value In syllables, their differences, then the 
words and their case, their quantity long or short, 
their accent, and the rest? Arrived at this point we 
began to read and write, slowly at first and syllable 
by syllable. Some time afterwards, the forms being 
sufficiently engraved upon our memory, we read more 
cursorily. In the elementary book, then In all sorts 
of books, finally with Incredible quickness and with- 
out making any mistake." 

Aside from the Latin translation of the Odyssey 
the reading matter seems to have been largely moni- 
tory In character. As among the Greeks, the pupils 
themselves often wrote, as exercises In writing, the 
texts used In reading. The Laws of the Twelve 
Tables, the use of which In the schools, as stated by 
Cicero, was so characteristic of the severe, practical 
Roman, were probably used in writing and reading 
exercises before being memorized. Writing seems 
to have been taken up after the elements of reading 
had been mastered. A variety of devices were em- 
ployed to aid the pupils in the first stages. Quintilian 
recommends the use of grooves to guide the stylus of 
the beginner In forming the letters. Seneca refers to 
the practice, apparently common among teachers, of 
guiding the hands of their pupils. 

The practical Romans attached much importance 



44 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

to the study of calculation. " The Roman youth," 
says Horace, " learn by long computation to sub- 
divide a pound into a hundred parts. Let the son of 
Albinus tell me, if from five ounces one be subtracted 
what remains? He would have said the third of a 
pound — bravely done ! you will be able to take care 
of your own affairs. An ounce is added; what will 
that be? Half a pound." The monotonous sing- 
song of the arithmetical tables of which Augustine 
complains, " one and one are two, two and two are 
four," etc., had, no doubt come down from the earli- 
est times. The clumsy notation of the Romans and 
their employment of two systems of numeration, the 
duodecimal for money and the decimal for everything 
else, made calculation more difficult and more de- 
pendent upon mechanical aids than with us. Cal- 
culations, as the history of the word shows, were car- 
ried on through the use of pebbles or similar objects. 
Horace mentions the bag of stones as part of the 
schoolboy's equipment. As is indicated in our use 
of the word ' digit,' the objects most frequently used 
were the fingers. They were used with great skill in 
even complicated operations. Eighteen positions of 
the left hand stood for the nine units and the nine 
tens (the Romans had no sign for zero). The cor- 
responding positions of the right hand stood for the 
nine hundreds and the nine thousands, while 10,000 
and larger numbers were expressed by touching vari- 
ous parts of the body. To represent i, for instance, 
they bent inwards the fifth finger; for 2 the fourth 
and fifth; for 3 the third, fourth, and fifth; for 4 the; 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 



45 



third and fourth; for 5 the third; for 6 the fourth; 
for 7 they shifted the fifth; for 8 the fourth and fifth; 
for 9 the third, fourth, and fifth; for 10 the index 
finger was bent to the lowest joint of the thumb, mak- 
ing an inverted sigma, d. This finger reckoning was 
universal among the Romans and traces of it survive 
in the game of ' Mora ' still popular among modern 
Italians. The landlord or the merchant reckoned up 
with his fingers the bills of his patrons in the pres- 
ence of the latter. The importance of calculation 
and universality of finger-reckoning are reflected in 
the following passage from Quintilian. " Knowl- 
edge of numbers, assuredly is necessary not only to the 
orator, but to every one who has been initiated even 
into the rudiments of learning. In pleading causes 
... the speaker, if he hesitates, I do not say about 
the amount of a calculation, but if he even betray, 
hy an uncertain or awkward movement of his fingers, 
a want of confidence in his calculations, is thought to 
be but imperfectly accomplished in his art." 

Much use was made of the reckoning board. A 
common form consisted of sev- 
en vertical columns representing 
units, tens, hundreds, etc., up to 
millions. The longer section of 
each column contained four coun- 
ters, each of which signified i 
when moved toward the trans- 
verse column containing M, C, X, 
etc. The smaller upper section 
contained one counter, signifying 5 when moved 






© 


© 





© 


© 





M 


c 


X 


T 


c 


X 


1 


© 


© 








© 



© 




© 

© 







© 


© 


© 
© 







46 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

downward toward the transverse column. The num- 
ber represented In the accompanying figure, for ex- 
ample, is 3)753'6o9. 

Notwithstanding the difficulties of number work, 
it was in this that the Roman elementary schools 
seem to have been most successful. Advanced work 
in the subject could be taken up under a special 
teacher, the calculator. 

The elementary school restricted its attention 
closely to the bare utilities, reading, writing, and cal- 
culation. The institution was common even in out- 
lying parts of the empire. As an indication of this, 
a bronze tablet discovered in 1876, on the site of a 
Roman mining village In the mountains of Portugal, 
asserts that the village teachers (elementary) are to 
be exempt from the demands of the Imperial tax- 
gatherer — " ludi-maglstros a procuratore metallorum 
immunis esse placet." 

For that higher culture that would fit him to share 
In the pursuits characteristic of highly civilized so- 
ciety the Roman youth of the more aristocratic classes 
turned to the grammar school or school of literature. 

The Beginnings of Secondary (Cultural) School- 
work among the Romans. — ^The secondary school 
appeared among the Romans only comparatively late 
in their history. There was. Indeed, no reason for 
its existence until there existed in Roman society some 
degree of that culture which it was designed to Impart 
to the young. *' The science of literature," says Sue- 
tonius, " was in ancient times far from being In vogue 
at Rome: Indeed it was of little use in a rude state 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 47 

of society, when the people were engaged In constant 
wars and had not much time to bestow on the cultiva- 
tion of the liberal arts." The striking thing about 
the Roman secondary school is that the culture, which 
conditioned its existence, was foreign; and this has 
remained true of the secondary schools of all nations 
which have appeared in the subsequent history of 
Western civilization. 

The culture, the introduction of which made the 
secondary school necessary, was that of the Greeks. 
But of the numbers of Greek philosophers, musicians, 
scientists, grammarians, and rhetoricians that Invaded 
Rome at the time of the Punic wars, only the two 
last gained a foothold. The work of the others 
seemed to the Roman to have no relation to the prac- 
tical ends of life. The more immediate and special 
conditions which account for the organization of the 
study of grammar and rhetoric and the consequent 
establishment of Roman secondary and advanced 
schools were various. In the first place, the increase 
of wealth and leisure among the Romans had created 
a need for a more advanced Intellectual and esthetic 
culture than their own crude art and literature af- 
forded. About the middle of the third century B.C., 
Livius Andronicus, a freedman, born in the Greek 
territory south of Rome, but thoroughly familiar 
through long residence among the Romans with their 
life and character, began to present at their religious 
festivals translations of the Greek tragedies. The 
drama, though the form of Greek literature latest to 
develop, was admirably adapted to make a direct and 



4^ HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

powerful appeal to a comparatively uncultivated peo- 
ple. Later, Livius Andronicus translated from the 
Greek what would be to the Romans, perhaps, the 
most fascinating of all poems, the Odyssey. " When 
I was little," writes Horace, " Orbilius, my master, 
dictated to me the poems of Livius." The interest 
thus aroused led to a desire to know Greek literature 
in the original, to the employment of Greek tutors, 
and thence to the development of secondary schools 
for the study of Greek grammar and literature. 
Ennius, another Romanized Greek poet, supple- 
mented the work of Livius. Both taught Greek lan- 
guage and literature, but probably as tutors and not 
as regular schoolmasters. 

At the same time this interest in Greek literature 
was being aroused in another way. Those Romans 
who found ability to speak and write Greek necessary 
in political, commercial, or social intercourse, em- 
ployed Greek language-teachers known as gram- 
matici. As these Greeks were accustomed to use 
literary masterpieces as texts the attention would 
naturally pass from the language to the literature. 
Thus from being teachers of language the grammatici 
tended to become teachers of literature or grammar, 
in the widest and then usual sense of the term. 

Another cause which contributed to the growth of 
these schools and which powerfully influenced the 
character of their work was the growth of interest 
among the Romans in the study of oratory. The 
Romans had always attached a high value to the art 
of persuasive speech. Under their republican institu- 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 49 

tions the man whose eloquence could influence the 
minds of others was the man who possessed political 
power, and power was the goal of the ambition of 
every true Roman. Oratorical skill was also, as 
formerly in Athens, an important safeguard to life 
and property. Cato, it is said, had to defend him- 
self before the courts on fifty different occasions. The 
Greeks, having felt this need for oratorical training 
much earlier, had already produced a system of train- 
ing to meet it. 

At first this rhetorical training seems to have been 
given in Rome in the non-professional grammar 
schools. Later the work was differentiated, the im- 
portant preparatory literary instruction being given 
in the grammar school while training in oratory was 
given in higher schools more professional in character, 
called schools of rhetoric. We have then in Rome in 
the first century B.C. a hierarchy of schools consisting 
of three classes, the elementary, the grammar, and 
the rhetoric school. It is to these three schools that 
Apuleius refers in * Florides ' 20, " At a repast the 
first cup is for thirst, the second for joy, the third for 
pleasure, the fourth for folly. In the feasts of the 
Muses on the contrary the first cup is poured out for 
us by the literator (who teaches us to read) ; it begins 
to polish the rudeness of our minds; then comes the 
grammarian who adorns us with a variety of knowl- 
edge; finally the rhetor puts into our hands the 
weapon of eloquence." 

The literature studied in these schools, it should be 
noted, was Greek, the system of instruction was 



50 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Greek, and the teachers were, at first, Greek. They 
were decidedly Greek schools. " But we," says 
Cicero, " who have all our learning from Greece, 
read and learn these works of theirs from our child- 
hood; and look on this as a liberal and learned edu- 
cation." The national pride, however, as well as 
the practical sense of the Romans led them soon to 
develop a system of literary and rhetorical training, 
modeled after that of the Greeks, but based upon the 
study of their own somewhat meager but rapidly 
developing literature. Horace in a humorous apos- 
trophe to a volume of his poems which he was about 
to publish says, " When overtaken by lisping old age, 
you will teach boys the rudiments of their learning in 
the streets of the suburbs." Thus side by side with 
the Greek there arose Latin schools, which to a re- 
markable degree maintained an independent exist- 
ence. They differed from the Greek schools not only 
in language but, as we should expect, in laying great 
emphasis upon the practical and less upon the theoreti- 
cal part of the work. Both classes of schools existed 
in Rome. In later times Latin culture alone flour- 
ished in the West while Greek flourished in the East. 
The situation in Rome was not unlike that which 
exists among us even to-day. We have schools which 
aim to impart a culture on the basis of the study of 
Latin, while other schools are organized in accord- 
ance with the belief that a more practical culture can 
be imparted with greater facility through the study of 
literature of the mother tongue. So we have Latin 
high schools and English high schools. Similarly the 



THE SCFIOOLS OF ROME 5^ 

Germans have their Gymnasia and their Realschulen, 
in the former of which the culture imparted is largely 
Graeco-Roman, while in the latter the culture is that 
of the natural sciences and modern literatures. 

GROWTH OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS. DIFFERENTIATION INTO 
PRIVATE, MUNICIPAL, AND STATE SCHOOLS 

Instruction in grammar and also in rhetoric was im- 
parted at first by private tutors like Livius Andronicus 
and Ennius. Gradually the work of the grammarians 
and the rhetoricians became more clearly differenti- 
ated, the former being looked upon as preparatory 
to the latter. 

With the lapse of time an increasing number of 
these tutors found it more advantageous to instruct 
a number of pupils from different families in com- 
mon. Thus came into existence a class of private 
secondary schools. Nearly the whole of the second 
chapter of Quintilian's * Institutes of Oratory * is 
devoted to the demonstration of the superiority of 
the latter over the former system. Suetonius' bio- 
graphical sketches of the earlier grammarians show 
that the majority of them from being tutors became 
schoolmasters. Though the republican rulers of 
Rome manifested such indifference towards these 
schools as to provoke complaint from Cicero, the 
imperial authorities seem from the first to have been 
clearly cognizant of their influence in fitting the more 
barbarous races to lead peaceful and orderly lives and 
in creating a bond of sympathy among the widely 
different peoples of the vast and almost unwieldy 



52 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

empire through everywhere revealing the same great 
literatures and cultivating like tastes. No sooner 
were the Gauls conquered than Caesar opened a school 
at Autun. Agricola hastened to make permanent 
the incorporation of Britain into the empire by hav- 
ing the sons of chiefs educated in the liberal arts. 
Our own government is now pursuing a somewhat 
similar policy in the Philippines. Juvenal noted that 
even in the most distant regions young men were am- 
bitious of becoming orators. 

Furthermore, the increasingly mercenary character 
of the army and growing despotism in the state were 
excluding young men of the upper classes from mili- 
tary and political careers and restricting their activi- 
ties to law and the civil service, for both of which a 
school training was considered an indispensable 
qualification. 

These and like causes led to the establishment in 
almost all the larger cities of the empire of municipal 
schools, supported by the municipality. Referring to 
the thirty years he had devoted to the teaching of 
grammar and rhetoric in Bordeaux, Ausonius says, 
*' I have performed my municipal duties." " Exegi 
municipalem operam." 

The fostering care of the state for these schools of 
grammar and rhetoric manifested itself in a variety 
of ways. Julius Caesar granted the rights of Roman 
citizenship to all teachers of the liberal arts. Suc- 
cessive emperors granted them special privileges such 
as, exemption from military service, from judicial 
functions, from having soldiers quartered in their 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 53 

houses. Teachers were not compelled to accept the 
ruinous obligations of the curlal office. So valuable 
were these privileges that Antoninus Plus was com- 
pelled to restrict by law the number of grammarians 
and rhetoricians in each city who might enjoy them. 

Under Vespasian the state not only favored private 
and municipal teachers with special privileges, but It 
Inaugurated the establishment of a few state schools, 
maintained from the treasury not of the municipality 
but of the state. Vespasian granted the rhetoricians, 
says Suetonius, an annual salary of 100,000 sesterces 
(about $4,000). Later Marcus Aurellus endowed 
at Athens two chairs In each of the great schools of 
philosophy (Academic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epi- 
curean) with a salary of 10,000 drachmas (about 
$1,800). Furthermore, Severus, Alexander, Gratian, 
and other emperors seem to have compelled the cities, 
which under the ruinous taxation had become dilatory 
and parsimonious, to pay certain fixed salaries to their 
teachers. 

To sum up, private schools for teaching grammar 
and rhetoric were widely distributed throughout the 
empire, municipal schools were maintained by most 
of the larger cities, and. In a few great centers of 
learning such as Athens and Rome, schools were en- 
dowed directly by the state. 

THE CHARACTER OF ROMAN SECONDARY SCHOOL-WORK 

The courses of the Latin and Greek schools of the 
Romans were sufficiently alike to be Included In the 
same general description. In both the work con- 



54 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

sisted mainly of the study of grammar Involving an 
extensive and Intensive study of literature. The ex- 
tension of meaning acquired by the term * grammar ' 
is well explained by Quintllian. *' Let grammar 
(which, turning into a Latin word, they have called 
literatura, * literature ' ) know Its own boundaries, espe- 
cially as it is so far advanced beyond the humility 
Indicated by its name — for though weak at Its source, 
yet, having gained strength from the poets and his- 
torians, — it has engrossed the study of almost all the 
highest departments of learning.'^ 

The work In literature was preceded by the study 
of grammar In our modern, narrower sense of the 
term. In both schools the knowledge and training 
thus acquired were made available for oratorical pur- 
poses through abundance of practice in writing and 
speaking. Some slight attention seems to have been 
paid to the sciences. The study of grammar was In- 
tended to cultivate correctness of speech. The study 
of literature. In so far as It dealt with form, would 
cultivate the student's sense of the beauties of literary 
style; In so far as it dealt with content. It would de- 
velop that breadth of knowledge and of sentiment 
which Is the necessary foundation of true elevation 
of thought and language. The rhetorical exercises 
trained the pupIFs powers of expression. 

School instruction In these subjects became elabo- 
rately systematized at the hands successively of the 
Athenians, the Alexandrians, and of the Romans 
themselves. So formal and elaborate was the pro- 
cedure that it Is impossible to examine it here in all 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 55 

its details. A few only of the most typical will be 
described. 

GRAMMAR 

The work in grammar, using the word again 
in the restricted sense, began with the letters. 
They were divided into vowels and consonants, and 
the latter again into semi-vowels and mutes. A com- 
parison of the letters with the elementary sounds of 
the language then led up to the study of changes In 
the form of words. Did letters exist corresponding 
to all the sounds of the language? For instance, was 
the second vowel sound of ' optimus ' correctly repre- 
sented by * i ' ? What letters had more than one 
sound? Instances of vowel changes in words were 
noted, in conjugation, as ' f alio, fefelli ' ; in composi- 
tion, as ' cadit, excidit,' etc. Attention was paid to 
the changes taking place with the lapse of time. 
' Alexander ' was compared with the form ' Alexan- 
ter ' found on ancient monuments. Similarly, * arbor, 
labor, vapor,' were contrasted with the obsolete forms 
'arbos, labos, vapos.' Words were classified as to their 
function, some following Aristotle's classification into 
verbs, nouns, and conjunctions. Varro, an eminent 
Latin grammarian, divided them into those that have 
case, those that have tense, those that have neither, and 
those that have both. It was noted that some nouns 
feminine in form were masculine as ' Muraena,' some 
neuter in form were feminine, also that some verbs 
looked like nouns as ' fraudator,' that some were used 
only In the third person as * licet, piget.' A large but 
poorly classified collection of facts like these was made. 



56 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 



LITERATURE 

The Study of grammar was followed by that 
of literature, the interpretation of the poets. The 
method was carefully elaborated and, notwithstand- 
ing a great variety of terminology, seems to have 
been in different schools essentially the same. It may 
be advantageously discussed under the following 
heads, — the reading, the comment, the correction, and 
the judgment. 

Great importance was attached to Reading aloud. 
A Roman epitaph reads, '^ I have been grammarian 
and reader, but of those readers who please through 
the purity of their delivery." Careful attention was 
paid to accent, quantity, pronunciation, and also ex- 
pression. Many passages were memorized. 

The purpose of the Comment was to furnish the 
student with apperceiving ideas and thus aid him to a 
more thorough appreciation of the poem. The life 
of the author, the circumstances of the composition 
of the poem, facts about persons, places, and things 
mentioned in the text were among the points dis- 
cussed. Quintilian probably has in mind the exten- 
sive knowledge which this part of the work demands 
of the teacher when he writes, " Nor is it sufficient 
to have read the poets only; every class of writers 
must be studied, not simply for matter, but for words, 
which often receive their authority from writers." 
Juvenal says that it was expected of the teacher that 
he should " read all histories, know all authors as well 
as his finger ends, that if questioned ... he should 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 57 

be able to tell the name of Anchises' nurse, and the 
name and native land of the stepmother of Anche- 
molus . . . also how many flagons of wine the 
Sicilian king gave to the Phrygians." 

The Correction dealt with the text and also with 
the style of the author. First there was the authen- 
ticity of the text. Is this the work as it was composed 
by the author? The authentic readings of the Greek 
writers had been quite carefully worked out by the 
Alexandrian scholars. Yet much trouble was caused 
in this age of manuscripts by careless copyists. Gel- 
lius tells of a scholar who, at great expense of time 
and money, hired a copy of Ennius, said to have been 
corrected by Lampadio, in order to assure himself 
whether the poet had written ' equus ' or ' eques.' 
Is ' stetisses ' or ' stitisses ' the correct reading in 
Cato? Did Vergil write " Scopulo infixtt acuto " or 
' inflixit ' ? But this correction did not confine itself 
to questions of authenticity. It boldly questioned the 
style of the poet himself. Quintilian suggests that the 
teacher should point out " what words are barbarous 
or misapplied, or used contrary to the rules of the 
language." For example, ' vexasse ' was thought too 
weak a term in Vergil's line " Dulichias vexasse rates 
et gurgite in alto." ' Squalentem ' does not harmo- 
nize in sense with the other words in '' Per tunicam 
squalentem auro latius haurit apertum." Even 
Cicero should have used * potestate ' in the phrase 
" in pr^donum fuisse potestatem sciatis." In the 
study of most poems such questions as the follov/ing 
would come up : " Are these figures of speech legiti- 



58 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

mate? Are they well placed? Are they not too 
numerous? " Lively and even passionate controver- 
sies sometimes arose over these criticisms. 

The study of an author was rounded out with the 
Judgment^ that is, the general estimate of an author. 
In this were involved a characterization of his style, a 
resume of his chief merits and defects. Quintilian 
thought it the duty rather of the rhetor than of the 
grammaticus " to point out the beauties of authors, 
and, if occasion ever present itself, their faults." 

Book lo of Quintilian's 'Institutes' is devoted 
largely to appreciations of this sort. For instance, 
" Simonides, though in other respects of no very high 
genius, may be commended for a propriety of lan- 
guage and a pleasing kind of sweetness; but his chief 
excellence is in exciting pity, so that some prefer him 
in that particular to all other writers of the kind." 

RHETORICAL EXERCISES 

As has already been indicated, the ideal to which 
the secondary and higher schools of the practical Ro- 
mans directed the efforts of their students was that 
of the finished orator, for it is pre-eminently the 
orator who utilizes in practical life the learning and 
the culture of the schools. " The man," writes Quin- 
tilian, " who can duly sustain his character as a citi- 
zen, who is qualified for the management of public 
and private affairs, and who can govern communities 
by his counsels, settle them by means of laws and im- 
prove them by judicial enactments, can certainly be 
nothing else but an orator." Hence the school-work 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 59 

of the Romans culminated in the rhetorical exercises 
in which the student was led to utilize the literary 
and grammatical training he had received in the 
development of oratorical skill. There were two 
courses, an elementary and an advanced. Suetonius 
states that some of the earliest grammatici gave to 
their students the whole of their rhetorical training. 
The elementary course given in the grammar school 
consisted first, of the narration by the pupils of short, 
simple stories, usually fables. This was followed by 
the paraphrasing of passages from the poets, some- 
times close, sometimes free. " He who shall success- 
fully perform this exercise," says Qulntlllan, " will 
be able to learn anything." " Let sentences, also," 
he continues, " and chriae, and ethologies be written 
by the learner, with the occasions of the sayings added 
according to the grammarians, because these depend 
upon reading. The nature of all these is similar, 
but their form different; because a sentence is a gen- 
eral proposition; ethology is confined to certain per- 
sons. Of chriae several sorts are specified: one similar 
to a sentence, which Is introduced with a simple state- 
ment, * He said,' or ' He was accustomed to say ' ; an- 
other which includes Its subject in an answer: * He, 
being asked,' or ' When this remark was made to 
him, replied ' ; a third, not unlike the second, com- 
mences ' When some one had ' not ' said ' but ' done, 
something.' " An exercise commonly connected with 
this was that of reconstructing the sentences so 
that the name of the person concerning whom the 
anecdote was told would occur in the different cases. 



6o HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

The advanced preparatory course seems to have 
been given by the grammatlci, although Quintihan 
contends that it should be given by the rhetor. It in- 
cluded a greater variety of exercises. The list given 
by Hermogenes is as follows: i. Fables; freer rendi- 
tions of these were expected than in the elementary 
courses. 2. Stories, differing from the preceding in 
being more probable, the characters being gods or 
men. 3. Chria, formal discussions of a thought at- 
tributed to some eminent man. 4. Refutation or 
Confirmation of a tale. 5. Commonplaces, invective 
against vices or praise of virtues. 6. Praise and 
Censure. This exercise differed from the preced- 
ing only in referring to particular individuals. 

7. Comparison (a) of men, as Achilles and Hec- 
tor, or (b) of virtues, as justice and generosity. 

8. Theses or general questions as, Should a 'man 
marry? Is country life to be preferred to city 
life? Not only were the subjects of the rhetorical 
exercises divided in this way into a number of con- 
ventional classes, but each class of subjects had to be 
treated according to a definite, formal plan. In writ- 
ing a chria, for example, the pupil was required to 
begin with a eulogy of the author, then he had to 
give a paraphrase of the thought, then an exposition 
of it, fourthly, an investigation of the contrary, fol- 
lowed in order by comparison, illustration, confirma- 
tion, the whole to conclude with an exhortation. 

Other Subjects. — * Grammar ' occupied so large a 
space in the secondary school curriculum as to leave 
little room for anything else. The attention paid to 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 6 1 

the fine arts and the sciences was not on account of 
their culture value, but because of their utility. 
Music and dancing were prized only in so far as they 
gave ease and grace of manner to the orator. 

The former of these arts improved his voice. In- 
struction was given by special teachers and usually 
in the privacy of the home, for the practice of these 
arts elsewhere than in the time-honored religious 
ceremonies was not considered to comport with the 
dignity of a Roman citizen. Sculpture, as involving 
manual labor, was despised, and the art of painting 
was little cultivated. 

The sciences were held in somewhat higher esteem, 
presumably because of their greater practical utihty. 
Those studied in the secondary school course were 
for the most part included under the term ' geometry.' 
" Geometry," writes Quintilian, " is divided between 
numbers and figures." A little farther on, he con- 
tinues, *' Need I add that geometry raises itself still 
higher, so as even to ascertain the system of the 
world? When it demonstrates by calculations the 
regular and appointed movements of the celestial 
bodies, we learn that, in that system, there is nothing 
unordained or fortuitous." Under geometry, then, 
were included the sciences distinguished by us as 
arithmetic, geometry, geography, and astronomy. 
The word * geometry ' retained, it will be noted, 
much of this breadth of meaning throughout the Mid- 
dle Ages. The Romans, characteristically enough, 
limited the study of these subjects to their practical 
applications in everyday life. Cicero, in speaking of 



62 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

geometry, says, " We have reduced the limits of this 
science and we expect of it no other benefit than that 
of knowing how to measure or count." These sub- 
jects were studied only in brief periods which could 
be spared during the school day from the all- 
Important literary and rhetorical studies. Instruction 
was given by a special teacher, the ' geometer.' The 
rarity of mention of this teacher in Roman literature 
Indicates that his position was a subordinate one. 
The arithmetic was a continuation of the work of 
the ' calculator.' The geometry (In the narrower 
sense) consisted chiefly In exercises In mensuration. 

The reason for this is given by Quintllian, " Knowl- 
edge of linear jfigures, too, is frequently required In 
causes, for law-suits occur concerning boundaries and 
measures." Even less attention was paid to the study 
of astronomy. Its chief practical application seems 
to have been in the construction of the calendar. 

Bearing In mind that rhetoric Involved dialectic or 
the science of reasoned argument and that the term, 
geometry, had a much wider meaning than at present. 
It Is evident that the Roman course of study Included 
all the material later differentiated by Martianus 
Capella and others into the * Seven Liberal Arts,' 
still later known as the trivium and the quadrivlum. 

Methods and Discipline. — Owing to the scarcity 
and expensiveness of books much of the Instruction 
was dictated. * Dictata ' was the name by which 
schoolbooks were commonly known. Much emphasis 
was laid upon learning by heart. Objective means of 
Instruction were not unknown. The schoolroom was 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 63 

often adorned with the busts of the authors read. 
Juvenal speaks of these being blackened by the smoke 
of the lamps of pupils arriving early In the morning. 
The walls were decorated also with pictures graven 
on stone representing great events of history or 
mythology. The Tabula Ihaca In the Capltollne 
Museum at Rome Is an example. 

Monthly pubhc exhibitions, prizes, and corporal 
punishment were employed as means of stimulating 
activity and maintaining discipline. 

THE ROMAN SCHOOLS OF RHETORIC 

The emphasis laid upon oratorical training In the 
Roman grammar schools, and the reasons for It have 
already been discussed (p. 58). Every schoolboy, 
says Juvenal, Is ambitious of rivaling some day TuUy 
or Demosthenes. Yet only a small proportion of the 
students of the grammar school were to become ora- 
tors. Its function was to afford a liberal education, 
such as the social life of the upper and middle classes 
demanded. The training of the school was oratorical 
because the orator had become the Roman Ideal of 
the well-educated man. 

Those who entered fields of activity such as law or 
politics, which necessitated the actual practice of ora- 
tory, entered a school of rhetoric, where they received 
a more specific training. Interest In the subject In- 
creased until. In the first centuries of the Christian 
era. It overshadowed all others. The establishment 
of the empire and the seizure of absolute power by 
the emperors deprived the art of any real value In the 



64 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

field of politics, yet this did not affect the popularity 
of the subject among the upper classes. From being 
pursued as a practical training for a profession, it 
came more and more to be cultivated as a fine art. 

The work of the schools of rhetoric consisted very 
largely of exercises in declamation and debate. 

Procedure had become somewhat conventionalized 
and elaborate, resembling in this respect that of the 
grammar schools which we have described. In fact, 
the methods of the latter were derived largely from 
the former. Suetonius explains this. " The early 
grammarians taught rhetoric also . . . whence it 
arose, I think, that in later times, although the two 
professions had then become distinct, the old custom 
was retained, or the grammarians introduced into 
their teaching some of the elements required for pub- 
lic speaking, such as the problem, the periphrasis, the 
choice of words, description of character, and so on." 
The narrow range and the conventionality of the 
topics are satirized by Juvenal. '' Do you teach 
declamation ? Oh, what a heart of steel must Vectius 
have, when his numerous class kills cruel tyrants! 
For all that my boy has just conned over at his seat, 
he will stand up and spout — the same stale theme in 
the same sing-song. It is the reproduction of the 
cabbage that wears out the master's life." 

The character of the rhetorical study among the 
Romans of the second century a.d. and the impor- 
tance which they attached to it are reflected in the 
following incident related by Aulus Gellius : 

" During the summer holidays, being desirous to 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 65 

retire from the heat of the city, I accompanied An- 
tonius Juiianus, the rhetorician, to Naples. There 
happened to be a young man of fortune, studying and 
exercising himself with his preceptors in order to 
plead causes at Rome and accomplish himself in Latin 
eloquence ; this person entreated Juiianus to hear him 
declaim. Juiianus accordingly went to hear him and 
I attended him. The young man appeared; and, be- 
ginning an exordium with rather more arrogance and 
presumption than became his years, he demanded the 
subject of controversy to be proposed. There was 
with us a follower of Juiianus, an ingenious and ac- 
complished young man, who took offense that he 
should, in the presence of Juiianus, dare to risk his 
reputation by the extreme peril of inconsiderate 
speaking. By way of trial, therefore, he proposed a 
controversy not very consistent which the Greeks call 
' Aporos ' ; but which in Latin may not very improp- 
erly be called 'Inexplicable.' (The question was: 
' Seven judges try a prisoner, the majority to decide. 
Three decide for death, two for banishment, and two 
for a fine.') The young man as soon as he heard this 
without at all considering the matter, or waiting to 
know v/hat was to be proposed, began with wonder- 
ful rapidity to assert I know not what principles upon 
this question, and to pour out expressions distorted 
from their meaning and a noisy torrent of high-sound- 
ing words. All his companions who were accustomed 
to hear him applauded with noisy clamor. Juiianus 
all this while was in the greatest perplexity, blushing 
with confusion. After he had gabbled out many 



66 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

thousands of sentences, we took our leave. His 
friends and acquaintances, following Julianus, desired 
to know his opinion. * Do not,' he replied, * inquire 
my opinion: without controversy this young man is 
eloquent.' '* 

The institution by Vespasian of the custom of pay- 
ing the salary of certain eminent professors of rhetoric 
from the public treasury inaugurated a movement 
similar to that carried out in Athens by which the 
schools of rhetoric were organized into a state institu- 
tion of higher learning. 

As the increasing artificiality and emptiness of the 
work of the rhetorical schools rendered them less and 
less adequate to the demands of practical life their 
functions as professional schools were in part usurped 
by professional law schools, the greatest of which 
were established at Rome and at Berytos. 

The Romans desirous of a highly finished educa- 
tion rounded out their school careers with a year or 
two of study at the famous Greek schools at Athens, 
Rhodes, or elsewhere. 

QUINTILIAN 

Among the Roman writers on education, Quin- 
tihan, a great teacher of rhetoric of the first century, 
stands pre-eminent. In the introductory chapters of 
his ' Institutes of Oratory ' he sets forth with some 
detail his views on elementary education. School 
instruction, he insists, should be made as agreeable as 
possible; the energies of the pupils are to be aroused 
through mutual emulation. Reading and writing are 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 67 

to be taught together and care is to be taken that the 
child shall hear only correct speech. The teacher is 
to study the disposition and abilities of his pupils. 
. . . The remainder of the first book is devoted to 
the discussion of the teaching of grammar, reading, 
elementary rhetorical exercises, and other subjects 
preliminary to the study of rhetoric proper. The 
second book considers the first elements of instruction 
under the hands of a professor of rhetoric, the five 
following discuss invention and arrangement, the ^ve 
remaining books are devoted to elocution and to a 
discussion of the character of the ideal orator. 

Though Quintilian's efforts proved unavailing 
against the decadent tendencies of popular literary 
taste, his was a name of great authority among the 
rhetors and grammarians of succeeding centuries. 
During the early Renaissance the recently discovered 
works of Quintilian exercised a marked influence 
upon the educational thinking of the time. 

STATUS OF THE TEACHER AMONG THE ROMANS 

The elementary teachers were frequently slaves or 
freedmen. As a class they did not hold a high place 
In public esteem. As among the Greeks (p. 7), the 
same individual often performed the functions of 
scribe and of elementary teacher. The epitaph of a 
literator at Capua informs us that he was honest and 
upright in drawing up wills. " Idem que testamenta 
scripsit cum fide." 

Professional training was obtained only through 
the apprentice system. The apprentice, known as 



68 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

siih-doctor or proscholus, led a life of proverbial 
hardship and poverty. Full membership in the pro- 
fession was attained through the recommendation of 
the master, who at first had the right of nominating 
his successor. Under Marcus Aurelius appointment 
was made only after the candidate had passed a strict 
examination before a board of eminent men. Part 
of the examination consisted in the delivery of a speci- 
men lecture. 

Under the republic and the early empire the 
social rank of even the secondary teachers was in- 
ferior. Their condition improved during the four 
or five centuries preceding the downfall of the em- ' 
pire. Never, perhaps, has the teaching profession 
stood so high in the social scale as in certain Roman 
provinces, Gaul, Africa, and the East, during the 
fourth and fifth centuries A.D. 

RESUME ON ROMAN SCHOOLS 

For centuries after the Greeks had developed a 
system of liberal education, non-professional school- 
work among the Romans was limited to instruction 
in reading, writing, and calculation. 

The higher culture of the later Romans was chiefly 
literary in character and was adopted from the 
Greeks. 

Among the special causes leading to this were: 
I. The introduction to the Romans of Greek litera- 
ture through representations of translations of Greek 
plays and through the translation of the Odyssey. 2. 
The study by the Romans of Greek as the interna- 



THE SCHOOLS OF ROME 69 

tional language of the time. 3. Growth of Interest 
in the study of oratory, a system of training in whkh 
had been developed by the Greeks. 

Though Greek culture was adopted by the Romans, 
It was strongly modified to adapt It to Roman Ideals. 
Only those features were appropriated which they 
could utilize in the attainment of the practical ends 
of hfe. 

Among the Romans, as among the Greeks, interest 
centered more and more in the study of rhetoric. 
With the loss of political freedom it was studied in 
part as professional preparation for the practice of 
law and in part as a fine art, as an end In itself. 

Methods of school procedure among the Romans 
had become highly elaborated and conventionalized. 
The course of study was almost exclusively literary 
and rhetorical. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE TRANSITION PERIOD 

While Rome was, century after century, slowly 
sinking into ruin, the Christian Church, which found 
In the social and political conditions of the declining 
empire a soil favorable to vigorous growth, was 
developing within itself institutions which were to 
perpetuate the traditions of Roman culture. 

THE CATECHETICAL AND THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS 

The necessity of Instructing enquirers and converts, 
as well as the young, In Christianity, this new and 
strange system of religious doctrine, gave rise to the 
catechetical schools, the largest of which became pro- 
fessional theological schools, in charge frequently of 
special teachers known as catechists. When later 
the work of these schools tended toward a cold in- 
tellectuality inimical to religious growth, they were 
gradually abolished and Instruction was afforded by 
any member of the cathedral clergy who felt himself 
capable, from the bishop downwards. Modifications 
of this system In the direction of greater economy and 
efficiency resulted in the evolution of the cathedral 
school. The introduction among the cathedral clergy 
of the monastic rule by Chrodegang of Metz In the 
eighth century seems to have contributed much to- 

70 



THE TRANSITION PERIOD 71 

ward making the cathedral schools centers of the in- 
tellectual life of the time. The plan was rapidly and 
widely adopted elsewhere. In time the systematic 
instruction of the candidate for orders came to be the 
peculiar function of a member of the cathedral chap- 
ter, who was entitled the Scholasticus or Magister 
Scholarum. So frequently was this office united with 
that of Chancellor that the titles Scholasticus and 
Chancellor became practically synonymous. 

THE EARLIEST MONASTIC SCHOOLS 

Neither asceticism nor monasticism is a tendency 
peculiar to any religion. Both have manifested them- 
selves in Buddhism, and in Judaism as well as In 
Christianity. In the fourth century conditions were 
unusually favorable to the spread of these practices. 
The teachings of Christianity had made the future 
world seem very real and vivid. The age of martyr- 
dom was past, but Christians still retained a lively 
sense of the merit to be acquired by suffering. The 
thinking of the time dwelt upon the antagonism 
existing between the material and the spiritual. The 
teaching of the Scriptures strongly supported these 
views. The brilliant civilizations of Greece and of 
Rome had enabled men to test to the utmost the 
capacity of sensual and esthetic pleasures to afford 
enduring happiness, and they had been found wanting. 
Decadent political and social conditions seem to have 
been depriving life of much of its security and attrac- 
tiveness. The movement began with individuals who 
sought isolation In the Egyptian desert. The num- 



72 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ber rapidly increased. The first monastic community 
was established by Pachomius in the fourth century 
at Tabennae, an island in the Nile. Athanasius intro^ 
duced the fashion into Western Europe. 

At first each monastery was a law unto itself. In 
some of them ability to read was a condition of ad 
mission. Some of the early monks devoted their time 
largely to religious meditation and to the study of th( 
Scriptures. Candidates for the priesthood often re 
sorted to them for instruction. In 360 St. Martin 
established a monastery near Poitiers, and a few years 
later another near Tours. During the following cen- 
tury many others were established in Southern Gaul. 
In the system of monastic discipline planned by John 
Cassian for the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles 
in the early part of the fifth century, provision was 
made for the education of those who were taking up 
the life of a monk or a priest. The course of in- 
struction here, however, was narrowly religious and 
carefully excluded as much as possible of heathen 
Graeco-Roman culture. The cultural influence of the 
monastic schools dates from the reforms of Benedict 
and Cassiodorus. 

For two or three centuries or more these profes- 
sional religious schools existed side by side with the 
Roman schools of grammar and of rhetoric. 

GRAECO-ROMAN CULTURE IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE 
ROMAN EMPIRE 

The excessive importance which the cultivated 
Romans of the second and third centuries a.d. at- 



THE TRANSITION PERIOD 73 

tached to proficiency in the rhetorical arts became still 
more exaggerated as the Empire approached its end. 
As so frequently happens in the history of school 
curricula, a subject, in this case, oratory, from being 
studied as a means became an end in itself. Mere 
skill in the use of words, irrespective of their rela- 
tion to the practical ends of life, was raised to the 
rank of a fine art. What Boissier writes of the gen- 
eral interest of the people of the East in the art of the 
rhetoricians applies no less fully to the citizens of 
the Western Empire during the two or three centuries 
preceding its fall. Whenever public performances 
by famous rhetoricians were announced, " A crowd 
composed of the people of all nations hastened to the 
place where they were to speak, and even the for- 
eigners who could not understand them listened to 
them with delight as to melodious nightingales, ad- 
miring the rapidity of their speech and the harmony 
of their beautiful phrases." Of the professional 
orator in Western Europe, Dill says, " If he was a 
man of reputation in his art, people rushed to hear 
him declaim, as they will do in our times to hear a 
great singer or actor or popular preacher. — This 
power of using words for mere pleasurable effect, on 
the most trivial or the most extravagantly absurd 
themes, was for many ages, in both west and east, 
esteemed the highest proof of talent and cultivation." 
The chief centers for the cultivation of this art 
w^ere no longer in Italy but in Gaul, and to a less ex- 
tent in Northern Africa. In Gaul lived Ausonius, 
successively grammaticus and rhetor at Bordeaux and 



74 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

later one of the great dignitaries of the empire, whose: 
sketches, in his * Professores Burdigalensis,' of Miner- 
vius, who " wore the rhetor's toga with the dignity 
of a Quintilian," and who " prepared a thousand 
youths for the forum and twice one thousand for 
senatorial honors," and of Attlus Patera, a " teacher 
of mighty rhetors," as well as of his other fellow- 
teachers, reveal to us something of the ideals and 
activities of the school-work of the period. 

The widespread interest in learning in Carthagin- 
ian Africa is attested not only in numerous inscrip- 
tions but by the large number of eminent writers 
and scholars from that region. Not only Martianus 
Capella, the author of the cyclopedic text so widely 
used in medieval schools, but the poet Apuleius and 
St. Augustine, the works of both of whom shed hght 
upon the school-work of the time, were Africans. It 
is significant that many of the Church Fathers, such 
as TertuUian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, 
were natives of these African provinces and that the 
majority of them had been professional teachers or 
practitioners of the art of rhetoric. 

DECLINE OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE 

In the fifth century the period of brilliant though 
formal Gallo-Roman culture was drawing to a close. 
In the writings of Apolllnaris Sidonius, a Christian 
bishop, yet, characteristically of the times, an ardent 
student of the lore of the pagan schools, we observe 
signs of the approaching period of barbarian domi- 
nance and political confusion which was to deprive 



THE TRANSITION PERIOD 75 

this ancient culture and its schools of the very founda- 
tions of their existence. " How can I write six-feet 
hexameters," says Sidonius significantly in one of his 
letters, *' when surrounded by seven-feet barbarians? " 
Within a century after his death, Gregory of Tours 
writes, " The cultivation of letters is disappearing 
... in the cities of Gaul, while . . . the feroc- 
ity of the barbarians and the passion of kings rage 
alike unchecked, so that not a single grammarian 
skilled in narration can be found to describe the gen- 
eral course of events whether in prose or in verse." 



CHAPTER V 
THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

THE UNFAVORABLE CULTURE CONDITIONS 

The political and social conditions in Western 
Europe after the downfall of the Roman empire were 
highly unfavorable to intellectual culture and to the 
school-work which fostered and disseminated it. As 
states fell, with them fell also all guarantee of the 
security of life and property, and men were too in- 
tent upon the very maintenance of existence itself to 
be able to devote time or effort to the pursuit of 
culture. The dominant barbarians had naturally no 
appreciation of, or regard for, the literary and scho- 
lastic interests that were the final product of over 
a thousand years of Greek and Roman civilization. 
The schools of grammar and rhetoric ceased to exist 
in Gaul in the sixth century. Society relapsed into a 
condition of barbarism. 

HOW CULTURE SURVIVED 

That across this period of barbarism and con- 
fusion the essentials of Graeco-Roman culture have 
been preserved, and with them the traditions of the 
Graeco-Roman schools, is due largely to the Christian 
Church, for in the general ruin of the appurtenances 

76 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 77 

of Roman civilization the Church was one great insti- 
tution to survive. Not only did it survive, but it 
inherited much of the power and prestige of the 
empire. The excesses into which the barbarians 
were plunged on finding themselves masters of the 
wealth and luxury of the effete Roman provincials 
were checked in Gaul, as elsewhere, on the one hand 
by the powerful appeals which the Christian Church 
made to their fear of the supernatural, and on the 
other by the examples of austere living afforded them 
by the monks, especially the missionary monks from 
Ireland. Hence, just as Greece had taken captive 
her rude Roman conqueror, so Christianity, particu- 
larly as preached and practised by the monks, took 
captive the pagan Teutonic masters of Rome. 

It is an important fact in the history of the non- 
professional school that the Christian Church, not- 
withstanding its tendency toward other-worldliness 
and asceticism, was yet unable to dispense with 
Roman culture. Even so ardent an enemy of pagan- 
ism as Tertullian acknowledged this. The posi- 
tion of the clergy as the religious leaders of the peo- 
ple necessitated on their part a knowledge of the 
doctrines of Christianity as contained in the Scrip- 
tures, the writings of the Fathers, and the decrees 
of the Church. And an intelligent knowledge of 
these was impossible without some acquaintance with 
the elements of that culture amidst which they had 
developed and with which they were permeated. 
The mere performance of the routine duties of the 
priestly office necessitated ability to read, some knowl- 



78 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

edge of music, and at least such knowledge of arith- 
metic and astronomy as would enable them to deter- 
mine the date of the various holy days. Further- 
more, it should be noted that Latin, the language of 
the Church, was for almost all a difficult foreign 
tongue, to be mastered only through arduous and pro- 
tracted labor. On the other hand, once mastered, 
the way lay open to the accumulated stores of ancient 
classical culture. Cassiodorus, in the following pas- 
sage, states clearly not only the need of the clergy 
for the traditional secular learning of the Romans, 
but their attitude toward it. " Nor did the holy 
fathers decree that the study of secular letters was 
to be rejected, since our minds must be instructed to 
the understanding of the sacred Scriptures. ... 
Many again of our fathers versed in literature of 
this sort, and penetrating into the law of God, ar- 
rived at true wisdom. So the blessed Augustine 
notes in the book on Christian doctrine : ' We do not 
take into consideration with how much gold and sil- 
ver and raiment Cyprian, the amiable teacher and 
the blessed martyr, was adorned when he came up 
out of Egypt ; ^ with how much were Lactantius, Vic- 
torinus, Optatus, Hilarius ' (we add Ambrose and 
Augustine himself and Jerome and many other Greek 
scholars, too numerous to mention)." (Multosque 
alios innumerabiles Graecos.) 

While the storms of invasion and war brought 
Roman civilization in the center of the empire to the 
verge of annihilation, the ancient classical learning 
' That is, how much pagan learning he had acquired. 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 79 

was Still cultivated in the extreme eastern and western 
parts, which remained relatively undisturbed. From 
the East something of this learning was brought back 
during the early medieval period by individual schol- 
ars such as Theodore of Tarsus, later through the 
spread of the Mohammedan conquests and through 
the movements inaugurated by the Crusades. But 
learning and Christian enthusiasm were first brought 
back to Gaul and Central Europe from Ireland, their 
refuge in the far West. It was probably at Tours, 
and while Gaul was still the chief home of Roman 
culture, that St. Patrick acquired that knowledge of 
Christian doctrine and of classical learning which he 
bore to Ireland. In this island, sheltered from the 
turmoil that accompanied the first period of bar- 
barian rule in Britain and on the continent. Christian 
and classical learning flourished vigorously, while 
elsewhere in Western Europe civilization went rap- 
idly backward. From this western refuge eager 
missionaries carried back to England and the conti- 
nent, in the sixth and seventh centuries, a contagious 
enthusiasm for learning and Christianity. In 563, 
Columba, an eminent Iro-Scottish (for Ireland was 
at this time the home of the Scots) religious leader, 
established the monastery of lona among the Picts of 
what is now called Scotland. Some sixty or seventy 
years afterwards, Aidan, a member of this monastery, 
was sent as missionary to the English of Northum- jj 

bria, among whom he founded the cathedral monas- 
tery of Lindisfarne. Irish monks seem to have pene- 
trated here and there into other parts of England. 



8o HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Aldhelm received his earliest instruction from an 
Irish scholar, Maidulf , who established himself in the 
wilds of Wiltshire. 

REFORMS IN MONASTIC LIFE FAVORABLE TO LEARNING 

Meanwhile monastic life had been undergoing re- 
forms which made it a more efficient factor in the 
transmission of culture. The extreme asceticism and 
the want of reasonable regulation in the life of the 
earliest monasteries had hampered their efficiency and 
had proven particularly unsuited to the manners and 
customs of the West. St. Benedict, in estabhshing 
his monastery at Monte Cassino, drew up a rule so 
practical and effective that it w^as rapidly and widely 
adopted, and infused monastic life everywhere with 
renewed vigor and usefulness. His ' Rule ' divided 
the waking hours between manual labor, reading, and 
worship. Chapter 38 appoints reading during meals. 
Chapter 42 appoints the public reading of some edi- 
fying book daily before evensong. In Chapter 48 
It is enjoined that three hours in the morning and 
three in the afternoon be devoted to manual labor 
and two hours to reading. Chapter 59 states that 
children may be given to the monastery. The re- 
quirement of daily reading and the reception of chil- 
dren necessitated systematic instruction and prepared 
the way for the development of monastic schools. 

An even greater impetus was given to the educa- 
tional influence of monastic life by Cassiodorus, a 
Roman of noble family, who, after a long and suc- 
cessful career as minister of state under Theodoric 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 8 1 

and his successors, retired about 539 to the monas- 
tery which he had erected upon his estate at Viviers, 
in Calabria. One of the last to receive a lay edu- 
cation of the Roman type, he had been for some time 
intensely interested in raising the standard of Chris- 
tian theological education. Upon retiring, at the 
age of seventy, to his monastery, he incited his monks 
to study, and employed them in transcribing not only 
the writings of the Church Fathers, but those of the 
classical Latin and Greek authors. It Is largely be- 
cause of the activity thus inaugurated that the monas- 
teries have been enabled to preserve to us so much 
of the classical literature. Cassiodorus, himself, led 
the way, transcribing with his own hand the Psalter, 
the Prophets, and the Epistles. Perhaps the most 
important of his contributions to the cause of educa- 
tion consists in the fact that he made the monasteries 
the bearers to the future of that pagan learning which 
Cassian so abhorred. One of the indications of the 
arrested growth and the incipient decline of learning 
from about the third century on was the tendency to 
make digests of the content of the school curriculum. 
One of these by Martianus Capella, a pagan scholar 
of Northwestern Africa, epitomized learning under 
seven heads. Now Cassiodorus, in order to encour- 
age learning among his monks, composed for their 
use not only a treatise on the Scriptures but a com- 
pendium of secular learning. He notes the mystic 
significance of the fact that it consists of seven sub- 
jects, three preparatory subjects of a literary char- 
acter, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, afterwards 



82 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

called the trivium, and four more advanced subjects 
of a scientific character, arithmetic, geometry, music, 
and astronomy, which make up the quadrivium. The 
trivium and quadrivium were almost universally ac- 
cepted throughout the Middle Ages as the standard 
course preparatory (we must not forget that the 
schools of this period were primarily professional re- 
ligious schools) to the study of theology. 

CONTINUITY OF ROMAN SCHOOL TRADITION THROUGH THE 
MIDDLE AGES 

Though Graeco-Roman culture exerted an influ- 
ence upon medieval school-work through many other 
channels, this fact of the persistence of the ' seven 
liberal arts ' as the standard course of study, enables 
us to trace a continuity in school curricula from the 
Roman period through the * Dark Ages * to the 
Renaissance, when the interest in the literary studies 
of the early schools of Athens and Rome revived. 
Thus we may say that " The old pagan learning was 
never destroyed, notwithstanding the complete vic- 
tory of Christianity." Much of the credit for this 
may be ascribed to Cassiodorus. 

IMPORTANT MEDIEVAL TEXTS AND TEXT-BOOK WRITERS 

Boethius, a friend and contemporary of Cassiodo- 
rus, and like him a Roman of noble family, who held 
high office under Theodoric, perhaps did more to in- 
fluence the form and content of medieval schooi 
learning than any other individual. His translations 
and commentaries were practically the only means of 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 83 

access to Aristotle before the advent of Mohamme- 
dan learning. The texts which he compiled and com- 
posed on arithmetic and geometry were for many cen- 
turies the standard treatises on those subjects. His 
treatise on music was used as a text in Oxford and 
Cambridge down to comparatively recent times. Isi- 
dore, a Spanish bishop of the seventh century, wrote 
a cyclopedia of the learning of his time entitled 
* Etymologiarum Libri XX,' which was widely used 
In the schools. The lack of originality and of ability 
to distinguish between truth and absurdity which this 
work manifests, Is an Indication of the ignorance of 
the times. The extensively used cyclopedic works 
of Martianus Capella and Cassiodorus have just been 
mentioned. 

ESTABLISHMENT OF MONASTIC CENTERS OF LEARNING 

The work of the Irish monks in the North of 
England was powerfully supplemented by that of 
Roman missionaries in the South. The Cathedral 
school at Canterbury, established probably by Augus- 
tine near the beginning of the seventh century, be- 
came a great center of learning on the advent, as 
Archbishop of Canterbury, of Theodore, a learned 
Greek of Tarsus, in 668. Of the work of Theo- 
dore, and his able and learned coadjutor, the African 
monk Hadrian, Baeda writes: "Forasmuch as both 
of these were well read both In sacred and secular 
literature, they gathered a crowd of disciples, and 
there flowed from them rivers of knowledge to water 
the hearts of their hearers; and together with the 



84 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

books of the Holy Writ, they also taught them the 
arts of ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, and arithme- 
tic. A testimony of which is, that there are still liv- 
ing at this day some of their scholars who are as 
well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as in their 
own. Nor were there ever happier times since the 
English came into Britain." To Canterbury came 
from the Irish school at Lindisfarne, Wilfrid, who 
is probably the founder of the famous cathedral 
school at York. Here studied also Aldhelm, the 
founder of the monastery at Malmesbury. Another 
pupil, Benedict Biscop, an Anglian noble, founded at 
Wearmouth and Yarrow the twin monasteries in 
which lived and taught Baeda, perhaps the most 
eminent scholar of his day. From these and other 
English schools went forth missionary scholars who, 
together with the Irish monks, bore back to the con- 
tinent the classical learning and the religious enthu- 
siasm which had there become almost extinct. Pos- 
sibly the greatest of these was Boniface, who, in the 
eighth century, founded several monasteries, all under 
the Benedictine rule. Of these, Fritzlar. Fulda, and 
Bischofsheim became the seats of famous schools. 
Columban, an Irish scholar (not to be confused with 
Columba, the founder of lona), established the mon- 
asteries of Luxeuil and Fontain in Burgundy and 
of Bobbio in Italy. One of his disciples, Gallus, 
founded near Lake Constance the monastery after- 
wards named St. Gall, which became, perhaps, the 
most famous of all in the history of medieval learn- 
ing and literature. 



L 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 85 

It was, perhaps, under the influence of the educa- 
tional reforms inaugurated by the Anglo-Saxon 
monks that Chrodegang, of Metz, increased the edu- 
cational efficiency of his cathedral clergy by placing 
them under the monastic rule. (See page 70.) 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING UNDER CHARLEMAGNE 

The first revival of learning on the continent was 
due, however, to the genius and energy of Charles 
the Great. With the end in view, no doubt, of cre- 
ating a spirit of national unity in his heterogeneous 
empire through the dissemination of religion and 
of culture, he made vigorous efforts to raise the 
standard of learning among the aristocracy, and 
particularly among the clergy. The Benedictine rule 
was introduced into all monasteries that had not 
already adopted it. The example of Chrodegang, 
of Metz, was everywhere followed in the monas- 
tic organization of the cathedral clergy. Eminent 
scholars were attracted to the imperial court. The 
' Schola Palatina,' indispensable even under the Mer- 
ovingians, as a means of training secretaries and 
court officials in Latin, now assumed the dignity of a 
center of learning. Charles, himself, set the exam- 
ple, studying grammar under Peter, of Pisa, and 
rhetoric, dialectic, and particularly astronomy, under 
Alcuin, who had been induced to give up his chair at 
the great school at York, and had been placed at the 
head of the palace school. Important offices in 
church and state were used as rewards to those most 
proficient in learning. Imperial letters were issued 



86 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

exhorting the clergy to greater diligence in acquiring 
and imparting knowledge. The following is an ex- 
tract: — "During past years we have often received 
letters from the different monasteries, expressed in 
uncouth language. Hence there has arisen In our 
minds the fear lest, if the skill to write were thus 
lacking, so too would the power of rightly compre-; 
hending the sacred Scriptures be far less than was fit- 
ting: — and we all know that though verbal errors 
be dangerous, errors of the understanding are yet 
more so. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to 
neglect the study of letters, but to apply yourselves 
thereto with perseverance and with that humility 
which is well pleasing to God; so that you may be 
able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the 
mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. Let there, there- 
fore, be chosen for this work men who are both able 
and willing to learn, and also desirous of instructing 
others; and let them apply themselves to the work 
with a zeal equaling the earnestness with which we 
recommend it to them." 

Although the impulse which Charles thus gave 
to learning died away amidst the wars and political 
confusion which followed his death, his efforts did 
not come to naught. A succession of eminent teach- 
ers and scholars can be traced from Alcuin through 
his pupil, Hrabanus Maurus, under whom the monas- 
tic school of Fulda became famous, through Serva- 
tus Lupus (805-862), Eric of Auxerre (834-881), 
Remy of Auxerre, who taught at Paris at the close 
of the ninth century, and Odo of Cluny (880-942), 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 87 

to the time when conditions once more became favor- 
able to the development and the spread of learning. 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ENGLAND UNDER ALFRED 

At the same time that school-work was being vig- 
orously promoted by Charles the Great, the ravages 
of the Danes, which were to bring civilization in Eng- 
land to the verge of e^^tinction, had already begun. 
When, in 880, peace was restored through the genius 
of Alfred the Great, one of his first cares was to 
raise the clergy and the people from the barbarism 
and ignorance into which they had relapsed. In- 
spired and guided by the example of the great 
Charles, he issued letters to the clergy urging them to 
greater zeal in study and in teaching. Not only vv^as 
he himself an ardent student of the literature and 
science of his time, but he set about translating into 
the language of the people the books he considered 
most necessary for them. Like Charles, he sur- 
rounded himself with learned men and established a 
school for young nobles at his court. This institu- 
tion, though it does not seem to have maintained its 
existence, is important in the history of English edu- 
cation because, first, it may be considered as marking 
the beginning of a state educational policy, and, 
secondly, it was probably the first school estab- 
lished in England primarily for the education of the 
laity. 

The restoration of the monastic schools, almost 
wholly destroyed in the Danish invasions, began with 
the foundation of Glastonbury, by Dunstan. 



88 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST ON SCHOOL-WORK 
IN ENGLAND 

The Norman Conquest, occurring as It did at a 
time when all schools appertained to a great inter- 
national institution, the Roman Catholic Church, 
brought about no great change in curriculum or meth- 
ods. It did, however, have the important result of 
changing the language of the school from English to 
French, and this custom survived until the fourteenth 
century. In Trevisa's translation of Higden's ' Poly- 
chronicon ' (written early in the fourteenth cen- 
tury) we read: "Children in scole . . . beeth 
compelled for to leve hire own langage, and for to 
construe hir lessouns and hire thynges in Frensche, 
and so they haveth seth the Normans come first into 
Engelond." To this passage the translator appends 
the following note: "This manere was moche i — 
used to for the firste deth, and is siththe sumdel i — 
changed for Sir John Cornwaile, a maister of gram- 
mer chaunged the lore in gramer scole and construc- 
cion of Frensche in to Englische: and Richard Pen- 
criche lerned the manere techynge of hym and of 
othere men of Pencrich: so that now [1385] . . . in 
alle the gramere scoles of Engelond, children leveth 
Frensche and construeth and lerneth an Englische." 
Until 1362 French was the language of the Enghsh 
courts. Certain French phrases are still retained. 

THE AIM OF MEDIEVAL SCHOOL-WORK 

The general non-professional school, the history 
of which is outlined in these pages, seems to have 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 89 

had an independent existence during the early Middle 
Ages only in Italy, where the Roman secular schools 
of grammar and the liberal arts do not seem to have 
altogether died out. Throughout the rest of West- 
ern Europe there were only the church and monastic 
schools, the alms of which were far different from 
those of lay schools of the liberal arts. In the first 
place they were established to give, not a liberal edu- 
cation that would fit for membership in cultured so- 
ciety, but to give that theological, professional in- 
struction and training needed by the monks and 
the secular clergy. The educational function of the 
church schools was primarily religious and moral 
rather than intellectual or esthetic. Moreover, the 
other-worldllness which characterized the religious 
life of this period was diametrically opposed to that 
interest in human life and its environment which is 
the mainspring of all cultural activity. Even In the 
passage quoted from Casslodorus (p. 78) it is to be 
noted that the study of pagan culture is by no means 
advocated with enthusiasm, or for Its own sake, but 
as a necessary preparation for the study of the Scrip- 
tures. 

Yet, as has been pointed out above, some measure 
of the school learning of the Romans was absolutely 
essential as a propedeutic to what later became the 
central subject of theology and as a preparation for 
the professional duties of clerical monastic life. 

Olaus Magnus, In a description of the school-work 
of even the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries In Scan- 
dinavia, writes ; ^- Those that are sent to school are 



90 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

sent with this intention that with God's aid they may 
become clergymen." 

Though the schools of this period may be divided, 
so far as their external connections are concerned, 
into monastic, cathedral, parish, and other classes of 
schools, they all gave instruction in more or less of 
the same fixed course of study, and this was nothing 
else than the course followed in the later pagan 
schools of Rome, and v/hich had there already be- 
come so fossilized as to be capable of being set forth 
in such a cyclopedia as that of the pagan writer, 
Martianus Capella. A Bavarian synod of the eighth 
century speaks of instruction being given in the eccle- 
siastical schools of the time, " according to the tradi- 
tions of the Romans." 

In an atmosphere so unfavorable to purely secu- 
lar learning as that of these professional religious 
schools, even a fresh and vigorous literary and scien- 
tific culture would find little opportunity for growth. 
As it was, the culture embodied in the seven liberal 
arts remained " like a substance in suspension in a 
medium incapable of absorbing it, and sank in a mass 
to the bottom. In itself it remained unchanged 
throughout the whole period; it was so much dead 
matter passed from hand to hand and was only modi- 
fied by the rough and unskilful treatment it experi- 
enced during the process." 

INFLUENCE OF MOHAMMEDAN LEARNING 

At about the time when Christian medieval learn- 
ing had reached a period of decline in the ninth and 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 9 1 

tenth centuries, Arabic and Moorish Mohammedans 
were cultivating in their schools in Spain the learning 
which they had acquired in the last strongholds of 
Greek civilization in the East. Their work exerted 
a powerful and beneficent influence throughout Eu- 
rope. At a time when in the rest of Europe few 
outside the Church could even read and write, the 
cities of Moorish Spain were centers of a brilliant 
though short-lived civilization, with populous ' uni- 
versities ' whose membership included the most 
learned men of the age. The Mohammedan schol- 
ars opened the way for those of the Christians to a 
much more extensive acquaintance than before with 
the science and philosophy of the Greeks, especially 
Aristotle. Further, they combined with Greek learn- 
ing that of other civilized peoples with whom they 
had come in contact, particularly the Hindoos, whose 
system of notation we use and still call Arabic. The 
Arabic scholars made not unimportant contributions 
themselves to this fund of learning. They collected 
and systematized in the field of mathematics and nat- 
ural science as well as in philosophy. Our language 
contains evidence of both the extent and the char- 
acter of the Arabic contributions to our civilization 
in such words as ' algebra, alchemy, alembic,' etc. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 

Though in its external form the Roman course 
in the seven liberal arts was maintained throughout 
the medieval period, the professional needs of the 
churchmen who were instructed in it inevitably modi- 
fied its content. A prime requisite in clerical train- 
ing was the ability to conduct, or at least to partici- 
pate in, the church services. The instruction imme- 
diately essential to this was given in an elementary 
or song-school course preceding the grammar-school 
course in the trivium and including usually the fol- 
lowing subjects: — 

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION 

Reading. — Reading was taught by the alphabetic 
method. After preliminary exercises with the pro- 
nunciation of letters, syllables, and single words, the 
reading in the Psalter was taken up. 

Careful attention was paid to clear enunciation and 
correct accent. The Latin psalms thus gone over 
were then committed to memory. Inasmuch as Latin 
was still an unknown tongue to the beginner, this 
reading and memorizing was entirely devoid of 

92 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 93 

thought content. St. Gregory, Abbot of St. Martin 
at Utrecht, read so well at the age of fourteen as to 
win the praise of St. Boniface, yet he was unable to 
understand what he read. Chaucer's little chorister 
(see the ' Prioresses Tale,' II. 64-98) did not under- 
stand the words of the Latin hymn which he learned 
with so much pains. The fact that Charlemagne 
found it necessary to order that in the examination 
of priests and monks they should show themselves 
capable of changing the wording of the masses for 
the living and the dead, as circumstances required, 
from singular to plural or masculine to feminine, in- 
dicates that some of the clergy never acquired the 
ability to understand Latin. 

Writing. — -The first exercises in writing were taken 
up along with the exercises in reading. Wax tablets 
were used at first, and later, pen, ink, and parchment. 
In an age when all books were manuscript, writing 
naturally became one of the important industrial and 
fine arts. Students sometimes copied their own 
books, and some of the more skilful became profes- 
sional copyists. In a writing exercise book which has 
come down to us from a monastic student of the fif- 
teenth century, page after page is devoted to single 
letters, small and capital, frequently used words such 
as the names of the days of the week, the months, 
etc. The copies proper are stanzas or sentences gen- 
erally of four lines each. The initial letters, which 
are elaborately flourished, follow in the order of the 
alphabet. The copies, like those of to-day, usually 
express some moral sentiment, e.g. : 



94 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

*' Est melior probitas quam nullo sanguine claret 
Quam sit nobilitas quae probitate caret." 

"Uprightness of life without noble blood Is to be esteemed 
before nobility without honor." 

Music. — Music, which was so Important an ele- 
ment in the services of the Church, demanded early 
and careful attention in the clerical course of study. 
With the exception of grammar no subject made such 
great demands upon the time and the energies of the 
pupil. The Gregorian chant was generally adopted 
and in the time of Charlemagne, as at present, was the 
subject of numerous capitularies. The notation, con- 
sisting of little strokes, hooks, and points above the 
text, was not only complicated but indefinite. While 
the musical training essential to the performance of 
the church services was one of the chief ends of the 
elementary instruction, the more scientific study of 
music ranked as one of the most important disci- 
plines of the quadrivium. 

Arithmetic. — Another subject which had a place 
both in the elementary course and in the quadrivium 
was arithmetic. Like music, it owed its place in the 
elementary course to the fact that it was indispensa- 
ble in the professional training of the clergy, for 
every priest must be able to determine the dates of 
the holy days of the year. Charlemagne's Capitu- 
lary of 789 requires every churchman to be able to fix 
the order of the church holidays and to arrange the 
calendar for the year. 

The methods were apparently those that had been 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 95 

employed by the Romans. The work began with 
exercises in counting and in the representation of the 
numbers with the fingers (see p. 44) . The most use- 
ful facts connected with the four fundamental opera- 
tions were fixed in the mind through drill. There 
was little written calculation. With the clumsy Ro- 
man notation it was usually more convenient to use 
the fingers than the written symbol. 

Latin. — In this elementary course a beginning was 
made in the use of Latin in conversation. The Latin 
equivalents of frequently used words and expressions 
were learned. Through collecting these the students 
made vocabularies and conversation books for them- 
selves. In connection with this work some books 
curiously resembling some of our latest attempts in 
the writing of texts in modern languages have come 
down to us. One by Alexander Neckam, in the 
twelfth century, gives in Latin, with an interlinear 
gloss in Old French, a description of the various parts 
of a house, of the different occupations of men, and 
so on. Another, by Alfric, a priest, gives in Anglo- 
Saxon and Latin a series of inforrnal conversations 
between the teacher and pupils upon the more inter- 
esting features of their ordinary surroundings. 

In connection with these exercises the more funda- 
mental of the elements in grammar were studied, the 
parts of speech, the declensions, and the conjugations. 

The aim of the course. — In many instances, par- 
ticularly up to the eleventh century, the elementary 
course sketched above constituted the whole of the 
non-theological training for an ecclesiastical career. 



96 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Indeed, this fact seems to have determined the char- 
acter of the course, for it is not so much a pro- 
paedeutic to the seven liberal arts as it is a group- 
ing together of those subjects some knowledge of 
which was considered absolutely essential to the per- 
formance of the clerical functions. In the life of the 
Abbot John of Gorze, who lived in the tenth century, 
a detailed account of a theological course of the time 
is given as follows: i. Elements of grammar and the 
first part of Donatus. 2. Repeated reading of New 
and Old Testaments. 3. Mass prayers. 4. Rules of 
church time reckoning. 5. Decrees of the church 
councils. 6. Rules of penance. 7. Prescriptions for 
church service. 8. Worldly laws. 9. Collection of 
homilies. 10. Tractates on the Epistles and Gospels. 
II. Lives of the saints. 12. Church music. It will 
be noted that this includes little more of secular in- 
struction than the elementary course which has just 
been outlined. 

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE WORK OF DIFFERENT 
SCHOOLS 

Though everywhere the course of study, whether 
partial or complete, conformed to the same general 
plan of an elementary course followed by the trivium 
and quadrivium, yet among the different schools the 
greatest variety prevailed. In some instances, as has 
just been noted, the work was limited to those studies 
absolutely indispensable for church service. In many 
little was attempted beyond the trivium. In others 
a relatively great amount of attention would be paid 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 97 

to certain of the subjects of the quadrlvium. In one 
school would be a famous grammarian, in another a 
famous dialectician or exegete. Seldom did a school 
possess eminent teachers in all subjects. Hence arose 
the custom among the more zealous and talented stu- 
dents of traveling from one school to another. This 
custom survives in the German universities of to-day. 
Students of especial talent, or occasionally even 
teachers, received grants from the funds of the cathe- 
dral or monastery in order that they might study at 
some of the greater centers of learning. The trav- 
eling fellowship is not, therefore, a purely modern 
institution. 

THE TRIVIUM 

As a rule grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, the lit- 
erary subjects of the trivium, preceded the more math- 
ematical and scientific studies of the quadrivium, 
namely, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. 
There was little uniformity as to the order in which 
the subjects within these classes were taken up, ex- 
cept that grammar, of necessity, came first. 

GRAMMAR 

The fact that these subjects were all to be studied 
in Latin, and that Latin was the language of the 
Church, gave to grammar the first place in the cur- 
riculum, first not only in order of time but in order of 
importance. Among the Romxans grammar Included 
literature, and the term retained this meaning 
throughout the Middle Ages. But although the 
medieval course in grammar involved the reading of 



98 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

the poets, the fact that the language was no longei] 
native, but foreign, and the necessity of mastering il 
as a means of expression, together with the narro-v^ 
rehgious spirit of the times so unfavorable to literar^^ 
culture, brought it about that the work became almost 
exclusively grammatical in the narrow modern sense 
of the term. There was little appreciation of the! 
literary excellence of the poems read. They were 
prized rather as containing exemplifications of the 
rules of grammar. To the medieval scholar, how^ 
ever, the importance of grammar rested upon the fact 
that it opened the way into the world of learning in 
those times so difficult of access. In the Glossa nota- 
bilis to the ' Doctrinale ' grammar is defined, ostensi- 
bly according to Isidore, as " The doorkeeper of all 
the other sciences, the apt expurgatrix of the stammer- 
ing tongue, the servant of logic, the mistress of rhet-: 
oric, the interpreter of theology, the relief of medi- 
cine [medicinae ref rigerium] , and the praiseworthy 
foundation of the whole quadrivium." In a legal 
document conveying at the close of the medieval 
period the Grammar School of Manchester to twelve 
trustees, it is stated that " the liberal science or art 
of grammar is the ground and foundation for all 
other liberal sciences, which source and spring out of 
the same, without which science cannot perfectly be 
had, for the science of grammar is the gate by the 
which all other be learned and known in diversity of; 
tongues and speeches." To such an extent did this 
subject predominate that our intermediate schools are 
still called ' Grammar Schools.' 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 99 

"A need for Latin," says Leach, in discussing 
medieval school-work, " was not confined to the 
church and the priest. The diplomatist, the lawyer, 
the civil servant, the physician, the naturalist, the 
philosopher wrote, read, and to a large extent per- 
haps thought in Latin. Nor was Latin the only 
language of the higher professions. A merchant, or 
a bailiff of a manor wanted it for his accounts ; every 
town clerk or guild clerk wanted it for his minute 
book. Columbus had to study for his voyages in 
Latin; the general had to study tactics in it. The 
architect, the musician, every one who was neither a 
mere soldier or a mere handicraftsman, wanted, not 
a smattering of grammar, but a living acquaintance 
with the tongue, as a spoken as well as a written 
language." 

Li this study of grammar the medieval student 
was brought into a hand-to-hand struggle with 
Latin, which was not only the barrier which sepa- 
rated him from the learning of his time, but was the 
difficult language in which as a scholar and as a 
churchman he must learn to express himself.^ These 
ends, and particularly the latter, outweighed all 
others. To them all literary studies were entirely 
subordinated. Hence the line between grammar and 
rhetoric does not seem to be clearly drawn. Cassi- 
odorus defines the former as " The beautiful art of 
speaking derived from the illustrious poets and ora- 

^ For an account of the work in the cathedral school at Chartres, 
perhaps the greatest center for the study of grammar in its day, 
see Poole, ' 111. of Hist, of Med. Thought,' 1 19-124. 



100 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

tors. Its function is that of composing correctly 
prose and verse; its end is to please through skill in 
polished and faultless speech and writing." 

Method. — The texts were written in the strange 
and difficult tongue which it was the object of the 
study to master. Hence the teachers were under 
the necessity at first of interpreting them word for 
word. All books were manuscript and hence rare 
and expensive. Often only the teacher had one, from 
which he dictated the lesson to be learned. The 
pupils repeated it until it was fixed in their minds and 
wrote it out on their waxen tablets. The lessons were 
repeated aloud. In the life of St. Maglorius the boys 
ask permission to go down to the seashore so that 
they may not disturb the sleep of the monks by their 
loud repetitions of their lessons. The rules were illus- 
trated by passages from the poets, especially Virgil. 

Text-books. — The book in almost universal use for 
beginners was the 'Ars Minor ' of Donatus, a text 
admirably fitted for this purpose both by its clearness 
and conciseness and its catechetical form. Cassiodo- 
rus, after mentioning some of the other grammarians 
whose writings were known in the Middle Ages, such 
as Palaemon, Phocas, Probus, and Cesorinus, states: 
" Nevertheless, we give Donatus the chief place 
[Nobis tamen placet in medium Donatum deducere] ; 
since he is shown to be especially suitable for boys 
and beginners." Perhaps no text-book has ever had 
so wide a vogue through so long a period. The 
word ' Donat ' or ' Donet ' came to mean a primer 
or text, not only in grammar, but in other subjects as 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 10 1 

well. Like many of the texts of the pre-scholastlc 
period, It Is In the form of questions and answers, 
usually brief and simple. It discusses merely the 
eight parts of speech and begins as follows : " How 
many parts of speech are there? Eight. What are 
they? Noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, con- 
junction, preposition. Interjection. What is a noun? 
A part of speech with case signifying a body or thing 
particularly or commonly. How many attributes 
have nouns? Six. What are they? Quality, com- 
parison, gender, number, figure, case. In what does 
the quality of nouns consist? It is two-fold, for a 
noun Is said either of one and is proper, or it is said 
of many and is common. What are the degrees of 
comparison? Three. What are they? Positive as 
doctus, comparative as doctior, superlative as doctls- 
slmus. What nouns are compared? Common nouns 
signifying quality or quantity. The comparative de- 
gree serves what case ? The ablative without a prep- 
osition, for we say * doctior Illl.' " 

At a time when all books were written It was much 
easier than It is now for a teacher to change a text- 
book to suit himself, and. Indeed, Donatus under- 
went excisions. Interpolations, and additions of all 
sorts at the hands of various teachers. It became 
almost a matter of professional pride for every 
teacher to make his own Donatus. A passage 
printed In Kell complains of this: " Donatus's book 
of the arts has been so vitiated and corrupted by 
many, since any one either adds to it at will what he 
has seen In other authors or Inserts declensions and 



102 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

conjugations and other things of this sort, so that It 
can scarcely be found uncorrupted and entire, as he 
published It, except In the ancient codices." 

The larger treatise by Donatus Is still much more 
concise than most of the other grammatical treatises 
In use In the Middle Ages. It Is divided Into three 
books. In the first he discusses sound, letters, sylla- 
bles, feet, tones, and pointing, i.e. Interpunction, the 
old method of punctuation. In the second he treats 
of parts of speech, the noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, 
participle, conjunction, preposition. Interjection. The 
third book contains chapters on barbarisms, solecisms, 
and other errors of speech, also on metaplasms and 
the figures of speech. Compared with these the 
treatise most frequently used In advanced courses, 
namely, that of Priscian, is monumental In size, con- 
sisting as It does of eighteen books (not, of course, 
volumes). The author seems to have aimed at the 
comprehensiveness of the Greek grammarians. The 
work opens: with the definition and classification of 
sounds Into, articulate, Inarticulate, literate, and illit- 
erate ; following this the whole of the first book, occu- 
pying some thirty-eight quarto pages In Kell, Is taken 
up with the discussion of the letters one by one, their 
sounds, the changes they uadergo, their combina- 
tions, etc. 

Priscian's ' Partitiones Duodecim Versuum Aenet- 
dos Princlpallum ' must have been a relatively inter- 
esting and instructive book to medieval students. It 
is a thorough grammatical analysis of twelve verses, 
consisting of the first from each book of the * Eneid " 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 103 

and is In the question and answer form. The follow- 
ing are specimen extracts: "Scan the verse. Arma 
virumque ca no Tro lae qui primus ab oris. Hov/ 
many c^suras has It? Two. What are they? Semi- 
quinary and semi-septenary. How many parts of 
speech has this verse? Nine. How many nouns? 
Six, arma, virum, Trolae qui, primus, oris. What 
part of speech Is arma? Noun. What kind? Ap- 
pellative. What species? Common. Of what gen- 
der? Neuter. Why? Since all nouns which end In 
the plural number In a are neuter. Of what figure 
is it? Simple. Form a compound from it. Armi- 
ger, armlpotens, semermis, inermis, inermus. What 
is its case in this place? Accusative. How do you 
know? From the structure, that is, from the ar- 
rangement and connection of what follows. For 
' cano ' governs the accusative ; therefore if ever you 
come across such an arrangement, in place of the 
neuter place a masculine or feminine the accusatives 
of which are not like the nominatives, and the case 
will be manifest to you, as in this verse he says ' cano 
virumque.' " 

The texts of Donatus and Priscian were by far the 
most popular In the early Middle Ages. Even In the 
thirteenth century it was said, 

" Die besten die wir an grammatica ban, 
das was Donatus und Priscian." 

It was in this century that the popularity of these 
texts began to be overshadowed by that of the versi- 
fied grammar of Alexander de Villa Dei, the ' Doc- 
trinale.' 



104 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Among the other grammarians whose works, 
complete or fragmentary, have been preserved are 
Charisius, Diomedes (both probably of the fourth 
century), Probus, Servlus, Cledonlus, Pompeius, 
Julianus, Consentius, Phocas, Eutyches, Augustine, 
Palaemon ( ?), Asper, Macrobius, Victorinus, Caesius, 
iBassus, Fortunatianus, Terentianus (who wrote in 
verse), Rufinus, and Dositheus. Of the writers later 
than Donatus the greater number either accept him as 
their chief authority or merely comment on his work. 

In the thirteenth century, as already noted, a new 
grammar in verse, the * Doctrinale ' by Alexander 
de Villa Dei, came into vogue. The serious use of 
such a work as a school text it is difficult for one in 
our time to understand. The work seems to have 
been the result of an extension of the practice of ver- 
sifying certain passages in grammar to the whole 
work. The formation of the genitive of nouns in 
the third declension is discussed as follows : 

" Format nomen in a genltivum tis sibi juncta. 
is fades ex e, veluti mare sive sedlle. 
onis babes ex o : sed inis do perficit et go 
femineo genere, nemo soclatur homoque. 
ordo vel margo, cardo, cum turbine virgo. 
sic et Apollo facit; Britonlsque Brito, caro carnis. 
las lactis ponit, allec habeblt. 
is post 1 pone; sed lis mel felque dedere." 

{'Doctrinale/ V. 99-106.) 

Another grammar in verse which had considerable 
vogue in the thirteenth century, and was used in the 
schools of Paris until the end of the fifteenth, was 
the ' Graecism ' of Ebrard. 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 105 

When sufficient knowledge of Latin had been ac- 
quired, exercises in reading were taken up, the aim 
now being to train not merely to enunciate clearly 
as in the elementary course, but to get the meaning of 
the passage. The reading selections seem to the stu- 
dents of to-day strangely familiar, for many of them 
known as the fables of iEsop are still widely used in 
modern readers. These fables were probably first 
translated into Latin by Phaedrus in the first century. 
They were thrown into a variety of forms in prose 
and verse during the succeeding centuries by imita- 
tors of Phaedrus as well as by imitators of these im- 
itators. Indeed, so diligently were they re-written 
that the original Phaedrus sank into oblivion. One of 
the most widely read of these emulators of Phaedrus 
was Avianus, the date of whose writings is placed 
anywhere from the second to the sixth century A.D. 
The following from the version of Walter, the Eng- 
lishman, in the twelfth century, will serve to illus- 
trate one of the forms in which these familiar fables 
appeared in the medieval readers. 

*'de vulpe et corvo 

**Vulpe gerente famem Corvum gerit arbor; et escam 

Ore gerens Corvus, Vulpe loquente, silet; 
Corve decore decens, cygnum candore peraequas; 

Si cantu placeas, plus ave quaque places. 
Credit avis, pictaeque placent praeludia linguae; 

Dum canit, ut placeat, caseus ore cadit. 
Hoc f ruitur Vulpes ; insurgunt taedia Corvo, 

Asperat in medio damna dolore pudor, 
Fellitum patitur risum, quern mellit inanis 

Gloria; vera parit taedia falsus honor." 



I06 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

The majority of the fables most familiar to the 
children and adults of to-day, and still common In 
our readers, such as ' The Wolf and the Lamb ' and 
* The Fox and the Grapes,' are to be found in these 
reading texts of the medieval schools. 

Some of these versions of the fables, notably those 
of Odo of Sherrington, manifest a strong moralizing 
tendency. This tendency, no doubt, accounts for the 
extensive use of a collection of maxims known as the 
' Dlstlcha de Morlbus Catonis.' 

The book contains fifty-six brief proverbs (sen- 
tentise), most of them consisting of two words each. 
No doubt the brevity of these, as well as their moral 
content, recommended their use as primary reading 
exercises. They remind one irresistibly of modern 
copy-book headlines. The first six are : I. Itaque Deo 
suppllca. II. Parentes ama. III. Cognatos cole. 
IV. Magistrum metue. V. Datum serva. VI. Foro 
pare. Following the sententiae are the 145 dlstlchs 
divided into four books. The following will serve 
as specimens: 

Lib. II. Distich IV. " Do not get enraged and quarrel 
over some doubtful matter: wrath impedes the mind, so that 
we cannot discern the truth." 

Lib. IV. Distich XIX. '' Learn something, for when 
fortune suddenly flees art remains and never fails the life of 
man." 

Among the most interesting of the reading-texts 
used in the schools of the earlier Middle Ages was the 
' Eclogue,' ascribed to Theodulus and written prob- 
ably in the ninth century. The poem, which is alle- 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 107 

gorlcal In character, has the didactic purpose of 
demonstrating the superiority of Christian dogma to 
pagan superstition. A flute-playing shepherd, Pseu- 
stis (Falsehood), challenges a shepherdess Ahthia 
(Truth), whose playing of the cithara had charmed 
both the neighboring stream and her flock into 
silence and immobility, to a contest. Fronesis, an- 
other shepherdess. Is chosen as a judge. In alter- 
nate quatrains of Leonine verse, Pseustis, the cham- 
pion of paganism, and Allthia, who represents Chris- 
tianity, sing the great events and the great heroes 
associated with their respective beliefs. The contest 
opens as follows, with the pagan account of the cre- 
ation : 

"pseustis 

" Saturn, the first, comes from the shores of Crete 
Disposing his glorious offspring (aurea-saecula) through 

all the earth: 
No progenitor had he, nor was any one older. 
As sire he rejoiced in a noble progeny of deities." 

Allthia responds with the Christian account. 

" The first man was a dweller in verdant paradise. 
Until, his wife persuading him, he drained the viperous 

venom, 
By this mixing the draught of death for all: 
The descendants still suffer for the crime which their 

parents committed." 

Pseustls's account of the peopling of the earth 
after the deluge by Deucalion is matched by Alithla's 
account of the life of Noah ; similarly the story of the 



I08 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Uprising of the giants against the gods is paired with 
that of the building of the tower of Babel; to Cad- 
mus, the inventor of the literary arts of Greece, is 
opposed Moses, who mediated to the Jews the learn- 
ing of the Egyptians, and so on. 

The poem, it will be seen, was admirably adapted 
for correlation with the great central subject of the- 
ology. Its widespread use as a reading-text in the 
schools is evidenced not only directly in records that 
have been preserved, but by the great number of man- 
uscript as well as printed copies of various editions 
which still exist. Rabelais refers to it as one of the 
well-known school texts of the Middle Ages. 

The form of the poem ^ can best be shown by an 
example. 

**ALITHIA 

** Samson, exuviis indutus membra leonis, 
Sternit mille viros, devastat vulplbus agros, 
Urbfs claustra tulit, nervorum vincula rupit ; 
Fraude sua tandem praecldit Dallla crinem." 

These books were not only translated carefully 
word for word, but numerous passages were learned 
by heart. Of the classical poets, Virgil was the most 
widely read, probably not because of his excellence as 

^ There seems to be much difference of opinion as to the 
proper scansion of medieval Leonine verse. Besides the regular 
hexametric scansion Dr. Theodate L. Smith suggests the follow- 
ing, in which the natural accent is preserved. 

Samson | exuvT ] Is 1 1 in | ddtus | membra le j oni's. 
If in the modern fashion we accent the rhyming syllables and 
neglect classical traditions we get such a jingle as the following, 
Samson { exQvT ] is [ I indiitus [ membra | le'onls. 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 109 

a poet, but because most of the examples in Dona- 
tus and Priscian were derived from him. But great 
freedom of choice was exercised. The taste of the 
teacher and the character of the books at hand usually 
determined the selection. Where the ascetic tendency 
was strong the reading was largely confined to the 
Christian poets, especially Juvencus, Sedulius, and 
Prudentius, the '' disertissumus atque christianisslmus 
poeta." At the cathedral school at Speier, under 
Bishop Balderlch (970-986), besides Virgil — 
Horace, Persius, Juvenal, Statius, Terence, Lucan, 
Martlanus Capella, and Boethius were read. The list 
made out in 1280 by Hugo of Trimberg, school- 
master In Bamberg, includes. In addition to the above, 
Ovid and the Christian poets. The modern principle 
of apperception was frequently observed In that the 
study of an author was often prefaced by an account 
of his life and of the circumstances under which the 
various poems were written. Collections of such brief 
Introductions, known as * accessus ad poetas,' are pre- 
served In two MSS. from the twelfth century. Much 
labor was apparently devoted to the task of expound- 
ing the authors read. The commentaries of Servius 
were used in the study of Virgil. 

An extract or two from the comments of Servius 
on the first two or three words of the Eneld, " Arma 
virumque," will show how exhaustively this work 
was carried out. 

Arma virumque,' etc. Many discuss variously 
why Virgil should begin with * Arma.' We under- 
stand ' arma ' to signify ' war,' and It Is the trope 



110 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Metonymy. For he places ' arma,' which we use in 
war, for war. So the toga, which we use in times 
of peace, is used for peace : as in Cicero : * They ex- 
change their arms for the toga,^ that is, war for 
peace. It is a familiar figure that we should reply 
not in the same order in which we have proposed. 
For first he speaks of the wanderings of Eneas : after- 
wards of war. We use this figure also in prose. 
Thus in Cicero's oration against Verres. Some think 
here we have the figure of hyperbaton, transposi- 
tion of words, as if the sense were thus : * Arma 
virumque cano, genus unde Latinum Albanique patres 
atque altae moenia Romae ' ; then you go back to the 
words ^ Trojae qui primus ab oris,' etc. Others think 
the word ' arma ' properly used in this place ; first, be- 
cause they were victorious; secondly, because they 
were divine; thirdly, because he always subjoins man 
to arms," etc. 

The commentaries of medieval origin, very many 
of which have come down to us, contain flagrant 
errors. In one, ' provincia ' is said to be an adverb 
meaning ^ swiftly.' ' Circenses ' is derived from ' cir- 
cum enses ' " because on one side ran the river, on the 
other they set up swords, and between the two was 
the race-course." 

But, as already stated, the main object was not 
adequate appreciation of the content of a literary 
masterpiece, but the development of skill and readi- 
ness in expressing one's self in Latin. Hence the 
emphasis was laid upon extensive reading and the dil- 
igent memorizing of entire poems. Ability to ex- 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY HI 

press one's self readily in Latin was considered the 
sign of a good grammatical education. 

Rhetoric. — It is scarcely to be expected that an 
art designed to train for public life should flourish 
in the schools of the medieval clergy, a class whose 
religious instincts and beliefs led them to retire from 
the world. The subject was studied in medieval 
schools along with the others of the traditional Ro- 
man course in the seven liberal arts, but the relative 
fewness of the texts and commentaries on it that have 
come down to us are an indication of the indifference 
with which it was regarded. " All that remained of 
classical rhetoric, properly speaking, was the config- 
uration, the terminology, certain definitions, and espe- 
cially that part relating to tropes and figures which 
had already in ancient times formed the connecting 
link between rhetoric and grammar, the former there- 
by becoming as it were a sort of appendix of the lat- 
ter." In the few schools where special attention was 
given to rhetoric, Cicero's treatises ' Ad Herennium ' 
and ' De Inventione ' were studied. Elsewhere 
briefer works based upon these were used, such as the 
passages treating of the subject in the cyclopedias 
of Martianus Capella, Cassiodorus, Isidore, and 
others. 

The position of the clergy as the distinctively lit- 
erate class In medieval society Imposed upon them the 
task of not only carrying on much of the Important 
correspondence of their time, but also that of draw- 
ing up wills, deeds, and other legal documents. 

The Carolingian laws prescribe that the clergy 



112 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

must have the ability to write " Letters and docu- 
ments.'* " Every man of importance," writes Wat- 
tenbach, " had to have a cleric about him to look 
after his correspondence." The educational need 
thus created was met through a modification of the 
exercises in prose and metrical composition, the ' dic- 
tamen poeticum ' and the ' dictamen prosaicum.' 
The latter, the dictamen prosaicum, became a subject 
of great importance and came to consist chiefly in 
training in the art of writing letters and legal doc- 
uments. The study of the latter led to the study of 
the law, which later developed into an independent 
department of study in the medieval universities. 

Lam. — The study not only of canon but of civil 
law seems always to have been an important part of 
the early medieval curriculum. Alcuin mentions it 
as a part of the course of study at York. Aldhelm, 
in his account of his studies at Canterbury, speaks of 
" becoming acquainted with all the secrets of Roman 
Jurisprudence." Boniface writes of the difficulty of 
" investigating thoroughly the prescriptions of the 
Roman laws." Hartman v. Aue even speaks of it as 
if it were the chief subject of the course in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries. 

" In seinem elften Jahr 
In Wahrheit sag ich, war 
Kein besserer Grammaticus, 
Als hier das Kind Gregorius . . . 
Von legibus las er nachher 
Es ward das kluge Kind gar sehr 
In dieser Kunst nach kurzer Frist 
Ein tiichtiger Legist." 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 1 13 

The large part played by churchmen in the state- 
craft of the medieval period explains the time and 
effort devoted to this subject. Though apparently 
treated In some schools as a separate subject, It was 
interpolated, as we have seen, among the subjects of 
the trivium. 

The somewhat meager curriculum of Abbot John 
of Gorze (see p. 97) includes the study of the 
* worldly laws ' as well as of the decrees of the 
church councils. 

The methods employed In teaching letter-writing 
and conveyancing resemble those of our best modern 
schools. The letters of eminent persons and docu- 
ments of all sorts were collected as models; these 
made up most of the contents of the medieval Letter- 
writers and Formulae Books. But, as too frequently 
happens, one result of this school activity was to 
make the art stiff and formal. Text-books on the art 
which begin to appear In the eleventh century expa- 
tiate upon each of the five divisions of a letter: i, the 
salutatio or greeting; 2, the captatio benevolentiae, 
or the way to make a good impression, in regard to 
the matter in hand, upon the person addressed; 3, 
narratio, the able statement of the subject of the 
letter; 4, petitio, the proper method of making a re- 
quest or a demand; 5, conclusio, the fitting conclu- 
sion. Great demands were made upon the imagina- 
tion in affording the students practice In this art. All 
sorts of conceivable cases, including even negotia- 
tions between kings and the issuing of Imperial man- 
ifestoes were Invented as the basis for these exercises. 



114 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

*' In one part of this city " (sc. of rhetoric) , says a. 
medieval writer describing the rhetorical work of the: 
schools, " princes of the church compose decrees, in^ 
another kings and judges issue edicts. Here the de- 
crees of synods are promulgated, there the laws of 
the forum are treated. In this city Tully teaches 
wayfarers the art of ornate speech." 

It was these practical exercises in letter-writing and 
conveyancing that, together with the study of civil 
law, constituted the course called rhetoric in most of 
the medieval schools. 

Dialectic. — In close connection with rhetoric was 
taken up the remaining subject of the trivium, that of 
dialectic. While on the one hand it was free from 
any taint of paganism, on the other it was better cal- 
culated than either grammar or rhetoric to appeal to 
those intellectual interests which found in the religious 
conditions of the Middle Ages a not uncongenial en- 
vironment. When in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies theology came to be treated not as mere dogma, 
but as a rational science, dialectic, outstripping even 
grammar, rose to the first place among the seven lib- 
eral arts. The science was highly recommended by 
Rabanus Maurus in the ninth century as a means of 
detecting falsities in the arguments of heretics. 

In Fitzstephen's description of the work of the 
London schools of his day, in the preface to his life 
of Becket, vv^e see the strong influence exerted by dia- 
lectic upon the spirit of the school-work of the twelfth 
century. " Upon the Holidays assemblies flock to- 
gether about the Church, where the Master hath his. 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 1 15 

abode. There the Schollers dispute; some use dem- 
onstrations, others topicall and probable arguments; 
Some practice Enthimems, others are better at per- 
fect Syllogismes; Some for a shew dispute, and for 
exercising themselves, and strive like adversaries; 
Others for truth, which is the grace of perfection. 
The dissembling Sophisters turne Verbalists and are 
magnified when they overflow in speech ; some are also 
entrapt with deceitful arguments. Sometime certaine 
Oratours with Rhetoricall Orations, speake hand- 
somly to persuade, being careful to observe the pre- 
cepts of art, who omit no matter contingent. The 
Boyes of diverse Schooles wrangle together in versi- 
fying, and canvase the principles of Grammar, as 
the rules of the Preterperfect and Future Tenses. 
Some after an old custome of prating, use Rimes and 
Epigrams; these can freely grip their fellowes, sup- 
pressing their names with a festinine and railing 
liberty, these cast out most abusive jests, and with 
Socraticall witnesses either they give a touch at the 
vices of Superiours, or fall upon them with Satyricall 
biternesse. The hearers prepare for laughter, and 
make themselves merry in the meane time." 

As texts the medieval students possessed Latin 
translations by Boethius of Aristotle's ' Categoriae ' 
and ' De Interpretatione,' also Boethius's commenta- 
ries on Aristotle, ' De Syllogismis Categoricis,' ' De 
Syllogismis Hypothecis,' ' De Differentiis Topicis ' 
and ' De Divisionibus,' as well as his translation of 
Porphyry's ' Isagoge, or Introduction to Aristotle.' 
In addition to this, dialectic was treated in the cyclo- 



Il6 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

pedias already mentioned of Martlanus Capella, Cas- 
siodorus, and Isidore. Richerus describes the course 
given by Gerbert in the cathedral school at Rhelms, 
near the close of the tenth century, as follows: 
*' First he explained the ' Isagoge,' that is, Porphyry's 
introductions to the categories of Aristotle according 
to the translations of . . . Victorinus and . . . 
Boethlus. Then he explained Aristotle's book of the 
' Categories or Predicates,' and in suitable fashion 
made his pupils acquainted with the difficulties of the 
book . . . ' De Interpretatione.' Then he pre- 
sented the topics, that is, the doctrines of the source 
of proof, which Tully has translated from Greek into 
Latin, and which . . . [Boethlus] has explained in a 
commentary in six books. With the same Industry he 
read and explained the four books of the categorical 
and the three books of the hypothetical conclusions, 
the book of definitions, and the book of divisions." 

On the authors mentioned commentaries were writ- 
ten. Brief compends were made for school use. 
The study was enlivened by the fact that the prin- 
ciples of reasoning and of argumentation learned 
were applied in practical exercises in disputation as 
in the instances cited by Fitzstephen. (See p. 115.) 
Theological questions were the standard subjects of 
disputation. In fact, dialectic grew into primacy 
among the seven arts as an auxiliary in the develop- 
ment of the great central subject of theology. The 
Scriptures, formerly studied with the aid of gram- 
mar and the church fathers, were now studied more 
and more from the standpoint of logic. As will be 
noted elsewhere, it was in connection with the devel- 



I 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY I17 

opment of the two allied sciences of theology and 
dialectic that the teachers and students in attendance 
at the church schools of Paris increased in numbers 
and gradually organized themselves into a university. 

THE QUADRIVIUM 

Although the trivium together with the elementary 
course afforded a sufficient foundation for the work 
in theology, nevertheless those who desired a com- 
plete course of instruction took up in detail the study 
of the subjects of the quadrivium; arithmetic, geom- 
etry, music, and astronomy. Some smattering of 
these subjects was afforded even in schools that did 
not give a regular advanced course. In the greater 
centers of medieval learning, such as St. Gall, Reich- 
enau, Rheims, systematic and extended courses in 
these subjects were given. The work was considered 
of great difficulty and suitable only for those who 
were especially talented. Gerbert gave instruction 
in mathematics to those only who possessed the 
requisite capacity. The other students were required, 
however, to gain at least some knowledge of the four 
sciences. Knowledge of the essentials of at least three 
of them, music, arithmetic, and astronomy, was, as we 
have seen, indispensable in the training of the clergy. 

Arithmetic, — The elementary course already de- 
scribed (see p. 95) seems to have comprehended 
about all of the subject that was of practical value. 
In the treatises used in the advanced course in the 
early Middle Ages much space was devoted to Pytha- 
gorean cogitations upon the mystical attributes of 
numbers. Martianus Capella's chapter on the num- 



Il8 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ber 4, for instance, runs as follows : " What shall I 
call four? in which is a certain perfection of solidity; 
for it is composed of length and depth, and a full 
decade is made up from these four numbers added 
together in order, that is, from one, two, three, four. 
Similar^ a hundred is made up of the four decades, 
that is, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, which are a hundred ; 
and again four numbers from a hundred on amount 
to a thousand, that is, loo, 200, 300, 400. So ten 
thousand is made up of another series. What is to 
be said of the fact that there are four seasons of the 
year (quid quod quatuor anni tempora), four quar- 
ters of the heavens, and four principles of the ele- 
ments ? There are also four ages of man, four vices, 
and four virtues." This sort of thing seems to have 
been quite in harmony with the spirit of early medie- 
val learning, and it is interesting to note Rabanus 
Maurus's application of it in scriptural exegesis. 
" A real thinker," he says, " will not pass on indif- 
ferently when he reads that Moses, Elijah, and our 
Lord fasted forty days. Without strict observation 
and investigation the matter cannot be explained. 
The number 40 contains the number 10 four times, 
by which all is signified which concerns the temporal. 
For, according to the number 4, the days and the sea- 
sons run their course. The day consists of morning, 
midday, evening, and night, the year of spring, sum- 
mer, autumn, winter. Further, we have the number 
10 to recognize God and the creature. The three 
(trinity) indicated the Creator; the seven, the crea- 
ture which consists of body and spirit. In the latter 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 1 19 

is the three: for we must love God with our whole 
heart and soul and mind. In the body, on the other 
hand, the four elements of which it consists reveal 
themselves clearly. So if we are moved through 
that which is signified by the number 10 to live in 
time — for 10 is taken four times — chaste, withhold- 
ing ourselves from all worldly lusts, that means to 
fast forty days. So the Holy Scriptures contain sug- 
gestively in many different numbers all sorts of secrets 
which must remain hidden to those who do not under- 
stand the meaning of numbers.'* About one-third of 
Martianus Capella's treatise is given up to the dis- 
cussion, similar to that quoted above, of the attributes 
of the first ten numbers, the rest treats of the nature 
of number and of the different classes of numbers 
(odd, even, composite, perfect, imperfect, pluperfect, 
plane, solid), also of ratio, multiples. 

Notwithstanding the exhortation of Rabanus 
Maurus, the science of arithmetic, aside, of course, 
from its practical applications in the * computus ' and 
ordinary calculations, fell more and more into neg- 
lect until it was revived through the genius of Ger- 
bert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, in the tenth cen- 
tury. His mathematical knowledge, though to a 
modern it seems very modest, sufficed to achieve for 
him the reputation of a wizard. Aided by the study 
of some long-neglected mathematical treatises by 
Boethius he constructed an abacus or reckoning table 
which facilitated the process of multiplying and divid- 
ing with the clumsy Roman notation. The table con- 
tained twenty-seven vertical columns. The value of 



120 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

a number depended upon the column in which it was 
placed. IV in the column to the right would sig- 
nify 4 units, and in the next to the left 4 tens, in the 
next 4 hundreds, and so on. On this plan 57042 
would be expressed as follows : 

The methods of multiplying 

J^ — L and dividing, though no 

V VII IV II J 1^ .J 

doubt a great advance on 
older methods, seem to us tedious and complex. 
Division with any but the smallest numbers had 
been up to that time an extremely difficult opera- 
tion. Gerbert's method may be called that of 
Division with Decadic Difference. The divisor was 
increased by the smallest number that would make it 
a multiple of ten. For instance, to take a very brief 
example, 97 is to be divided by 16. Using the 
Arabic notation for the sake of clearness, the opera- 
tion would be performed about as follows : 

(a) 16 is increased by 4, 

97 -7- 10 ^ ^ . 

— ~ _ the least number which 

80 added to it will make it a 

/^x 77 multiple of 10 (i.e. 20), 

(c) 16 20 is contained in 97, 4 

(d) "^ -^ 20 = I times, leaving a remain- 
2Q der (b) of 17. But each 
13 20 was too great by 4, 

_i hence with the 4 twen- 

(e) 17 -f- 16 = I ^jgg^ ^Yi excess of 4 fours 
— - or 16 was taken away. 

Remainder i Quotient 6 rj.^^ ^^ ^^^ j^ ^^^^^^ 

therefore, to the remainder, making 23- This again 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 121 

divided by 20, giving a quotient of i (d) and leav- 
ing a remainder of 13. In taking away 20, we 
took 4 too much. This is restored by adding it to 
the remainder 13, making a total of 17 (e). This 
is divided by 16, leaving a quotient of i and a re- 
mainder of I. The quotients 4, i and i are now 
added, making 6. Hence 97 -^- 16 = 6tV- 

With larger numbers and with the addition of 
fractions to the divisor the above operation became 
enormously complicated, and it is no wonder that 
William of Malmesbury, speaking of Gerbert's rules 
of computation, states that they " are scarcely under- 
stood by the sweating abacists." Before Gerbert's 
time the above problem would have been solved by 
writing down in order all multiples of 16 not greater 
than 97 (thus 16, 32, 48, etc.). Counting these 
multiples gave the quotient, the remainder was ob- 
tained by subtracting the largest multiple from the 
dividend. With large numbers the method was 
tedious and laborious. 

The Arabic notation, which is not only, like Ger- 
bert's reckoning table, based on the decimal system, 
but which has also a symbol for zero, came into use 
in Europe in the thirteenth century, and replaced the 
older method only in the three or four following cen- 
turies, so conservative are men in matters of this 
sort. 

Geometry. — As among the Romans, the term 
geometry was understood more in its literal sense 
than it is now. Cassiodorus discusses its definition 
as follows: " Geometry means in Latin the measure-- 



122 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

merit of the earth: since through the various forms 
of this discipline Egyptian lands are said to have 
been partitioned among the proper owners. The 
teachers of this discipline were formerly called ' men- 
sores/ " 

Among the Romans the term had come to signify 
largely what we mean by geography. Martianus 
Capella, whose chapter on geometry was the most 
widely used text on the subject up to the eleventh 
or twelfth century, discusses it under such heads as 
the following : — ' Position of the earth.' ' The five 
zones of the earth.' ' Circuit of the earth.' ' Longi- 
tude of the earth.' ' Spain.' ' The Pyrenees Moun- 
tains and the Province of Narbonne.' * Italy.' 
* Founders of cities.' * Sicily.' Similarly he devotes 
chapters to other important regions of Europe and 
of Asia and Africa. The whole concludes with 
three chapters of a more mathematical character, in 
which the properties of plane and of solid figures are 
discussed. It will be noted that the course as 
mapped out in Martianus Capella involves practi- 
cally nothing of what we call geometry. Occasional 
passages are interesting because of the light they 
throw on the geographical knowledge of the time. 
Capella, for instance, adopts the theory of the 
sphericity of the earth. " The form of the whole 
earth is not plane as those estimate who liken it to 
the shape of an extended disk, nor concave as others 
believe who say that rain descends into the bosom of 
the earth, but round and spherical as the second 
Dicaearchus asserts." 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 1 23 

In treating of little known regions Capella's de- 
scriptions, like those of Strabo and earlier writers, 
are likely to become fabulous. But unlike Strabo, 
he makes no apology for his presentation of a mix- 
ture of the true and the mythical. For instance, of 
central Africa he says: "Amidst these solitudes live 
the Atlantes, who have no names among themselves, 
and worship the sun which scorches them with their 
crops. They are never seen to sleep. The Trog- 
lodytes remain in their caves and feed on ser- 
pents, and they make a grating noise [stridunt] 
rather than speak. The Blemmyae are without 
head and they have the mouth and eyes in the 
breast. The satyrs have nothing human except the 
face." 

The study of topography seems to have been facil- 
itated by the use of maps and other illustrative ma- 
terial. In the eleventh century, in speaking of 
geometry, the statement is made that " Aratus 
spreads out the map of the world, on which he shows 
Asia, Africa, and Europe, and enumerates the moun- 
tains, cities, and rivers." Theodulf, of Orleans, de- 
scribes a map which had been drawn up with unusual 
skill. The terrestrial globes, constructed by Ger- 
bert, aroused general admiration. 

Natural History. — In connection with this sub- 
ject, some attention was paid to the study of natural 
history. Alcuin's list of the subjects studied in the 
Cathedral School of York includes " The five zones, 
the currents of the air, the movement of land and 
sea, and the nature of men and of wild animals." 



124 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Material for this study was derived largely from 
* Libri Originum seu Etymologiarum ' of Isidore of 
Seville. Rabanus's rather meager abridgment of 
this material entitled ' De Universo ' was still more 
widely known. 

The general interest in the varieties of animal life 
IS indicated by the popularity of ' Physiologus,' a 
book originating in Christian antiquity and re-edited 
and enriched up to the thirteenth century. The 
book gave accounts, true and fictitious, of the char- 
acteristics of real and of fabulous animals, also of 
strange stones and trees. Its religious and mystic 
character suited the taste of the time. The qualities 
of the animal were connected with the doctrines of 
Christianity, and suggested moral reflections and 
symbolism. The following is an extract from an 
old English * Physiologus ' of the thirteenth century : 

The Lion 

" The lion stands on a hill, and when he hears 
people hunting or notices by the scent that a hunter is 
approaching, he fills up his footprints behind him 
with his tail, so that the hunter cannot find him." 

Meaning 

" High is the hill, that is, the kingdom of 
heaven, our Lord is the lion who lives there. 
When it pleased him to descend to the earth the 
Devil could not find out, although he diligently 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 1 25 

searched, how he descended or where he concealed 
himself." 



The study of geometry In the purely mathematical 
acceptance of the term seems to date from the dis- 
covery by Gerbert of the geometry of Boethlus, 
which contains an extract from ' Euclid/ Gerbert 
seems to have given practical Instruction In land sur- 
veying based upon the study of some fragments of 
Roman treatises on that art found by him In the mon- 
astery of Bobbio. 

Astronomy. — Not only was astronomy a part of 
the traditional Roman course in the seven arts, but It 
was a science of which practical use was made in the 
arrangement of the calendar. Rabanus Maurus 
considered It the duty of the clergy to study dili- 
gently that part of astronomy which " Includes the 
investigation of the course of the sun, of the moon 
and the stars, and the change of the seasons, in order 
that they might be able to reckon the beginning of 
the Easter festival and the date of every holy day, 
and correctly Inform their parishioners of these." 

The subject generally Involved the study of the 
division and the measure of time, the difference be- 
tween time, reckoning according to the sun and ac- 
cording to the moon, the calendars of the Hebrews, 
Greeks, and Romans, the characteristics of the stars, 
the course of the seven planets, the meaning of the 
twelve signs of the zodiac. Among the texts most 
frequently used were the encyclopedia of Martlanus 
Capella, Julius Hyginus's ' poetica astronomica,' and 



126 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Aratus's didactic poem ' Phaenomena.' The first of 
these contains a chapter entitled ' That the earth 
may not be the Center for all the Planets/ an instance 
of a suggestion of the solocentric theory looo years 
before Copernicus. " Although Venus and Mer- 
cury," writes Capella, " rise and set daily, never- 
theless their orbits do not go round the earth at 
all, but they circulate in a somewhat wider course 
about the sun!^ Delambre, as quoted by Mullin- 
ger, states: "It is said that it was these few lines 
which Copernicus took as the subject of his medi- 
tations and which led him to his system of the 
world." 

The methods employed were often quite objective 
in character. Richerus, the pupil of Gerbert, writes 
that " at night time when the stars shone in the heav- 
ens the teacher and his scholars observed the oblique 
course of the stars in the dilfferent regions of the 
sky." The students were shown how, by the posi- 
tion of the stars, they could determine the hour of 
the night, a matter of practical importance before 
clocks were invented, especially to monks who had 
in turn to hold watch and give the signal for the 
night service. Gerbert illustrated his lectures on 
astronomy with ingeniously constructed models. Not- 
ker Labeo gives a description of a celestial globe 
in the monastery at St. Gall. A manuscript from 
the same monastery contains a picture of a monk 
gazing at the stars through a telescope. 

Music. — Music, the remaining subject of the quad- 
rivium, was a subject of even greater practical im- 



THE MEDIEVAL COURSE OF STUDY 127 

portance in the professional training of the clergy 
than arithmetic or astronomy. *' Whoever," says 
Rabanus, '' is not skilled in music is not in a position 
to perform the duties of an office in the church in a 
proper manner." The technique of music was ac- 
quired in the elementary course and in the regular 
participation in the church services. The study of 
music as part of the quadrivium was almost purely 
theoretical. Mere skill in singing or in perform- 
ance upon musical instruments did not entitle one to 
be called a musician. Only the most capable stu- 
dents pursued the subject, to which arithmetic was 
considered a necessary propaedeutic. Gerbert, the 
great scholar and teacher of the tenth century, upon 
the completion of his course in arithmetic, took up 
the work in music. " He demonstrated the different 
tones on the monochord, showed their consonance 
or harmony in tones, semitones, double and quarter 
tones, combined the tones into chords according to 
the rules of the art, and in this manner disseminated 
a thorough knowledge of music." Boethius's treatise 
in five books was the standard text on this subject 
throughout the Middle Ages. 

The cathedral school at Metz and later the monas- 
tic school at St. Gall were famous centers of musical 
culture. Of the latter it is written in the life of 
Notker that " Through different hymns, sequences, 
trop.es, and litanies, through different songs and mel- 
odies as well as through ecclesiastical science the 
pupils of this monastery made the church of God 
famous not merely in Alemannia, but everywhere 



128 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

from sea to sea." Of the St. Gall scholars and 
teachers, Notker, Ratpert, and Tautilo were famous 
composers.^ 

^Scheffel's Ekkehard, Marty's Wie man vor tausend Jahren 
lehrte und lernte, in the form of a diary by Walafrid Strabo, in 
Jahreshericht, Kloster Einsiedeln, 1856- 1857, and Zimmerman's 
Ratpert are works of fiction which give interesting and HfeHke 
descriptions of monastic school-work. They seem to be based 
upon careful study of historical data. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 

(a) THE MONASTIC SCHOOLS 

1. The Functions of the Monastery in Medieval 
Society. — The monasteries occupied in the social life 
of the early Middle Ages a place of great importance. 
They were the inns, the hospitals, the banks of the 
times. In some instances they were great centers of 
theological, medical, and legal learning as well as of 
liberal culture. They were centers, not only of learn- 
ing, but of industry and art. Wealthy Benedictine 
monasteries such as St. Gall, Corvey, Reichenau, were 
famous for their architects, sculptors, painters, gold- 
smiths, etc. 

2. Extent of Educational Influence. — In the early 
Middle Ages they had not only inner schools for 
novices, but outer schools for the laity and the secular 
clergy. A capitulary issued under Lewis the Pious 
and his advisers closed the schools in monasteries to all 
but those taking up the monastic life. How far this 
order was observed it is difficult to say. That it was 
not followed everywhere is proven by the subsequent 
history of the monastery of St. Gall, which, like Fulda 
and Reichenau, seems to have performed the func- 
tions of a university. Leach inclines to the belief 

129 



130 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

that the educational work of the monks in England 
was closely restricted to those of their own orders. 
He writes, *' Whether the monks ever even affected 
to keep a grammar school for any but their own num- 
ber, among whom outsiders were not admitted, is 
quite doubtful." 

It was in the monasteries that the traditions of 
learning were best conserved and cherished in the 
ninth and tenth centuries. It was they that supplied 
upon the continent the need for advanced instruction 
which found expression in a petition presented by the 
bishops assembled at Paris in 829 for the establish- 
ment of three large public schools open to the monks 
and the clergy alike. In addition to the school within 
the monastery the monks frequently controlled as 
landlords schools in neighboring towns and villages. 

The boys destined for monastic life, the ' oblati,' 
were from the first considered as members of the 
brotherhood. They participated in all religious serv- 
ices and took their turn in the performance of the 
other duties of the monks. The school, which they 
entered usually at the age of seven, stood within the 
inclosure of the monastery. 

Wherever, as in some of the larger monasteries, 
provision was made for the instruction of boys who 
were not to become monks, a separate building was 
provided outside the walls. 

3. Buildings, — The inner school was sometimes 
located in one of the covered walks of the cloister. 
Where schools were larger the buildings often in- 
closed a quadrangle. In St. Gall the church and the 



I 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 13I 

schoolroom formed one side of this, while about the 
others were ranged the sleeping room, dining room, 
master's quarters, the sick room, study room, and liv- 
ing room. These opened not into each other but into 
the court, about which was the usual covered walk. 

4. Maintenance. — Although no fees were charged 
for tuition, gifts from the pupils were accepted. In 
the case of wealthy students these were sometimes 
considerable. The widow of Richard, Lord of 
Molle, for instance, granted to the Abbot of Kelso, 
in 1260, her dowry of certain lands in return for the 
maintenance and education of her son among the 
* majoribus et dignioribus scholaribus ' of the monastic 
school. 

The poor pupils were in some cases supported by 
the charity of the monastery or of other patrons; 
sometimes a pupil was able to work his way through 
by copying books or performing other services. Some 
became beggar students, wandering from school to 
school. 

5. Supervision of Conduct. — The monastic school 
was directed by a ' magister principalis.' Great im- 
portance was attached to conduct. Numerous assist- 
ants were appointed to supervise the behavior of the 
pupils. Lupus of Ferrieres, on sending his nephew 
and two other boys to the monastic school at Priim, 
in the ninth century, wrote to the Abbot that the three 
boys were not to have more than two custodians. 

The careful attention to the minutiae of deportment 
which characterizes the social life of the thirteenth, 
fourteenth, and following centuries, and which Is 



132 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

evidenced by the numerous books on etiquette dating 
from that period, marks also the discipline of the 
monastic schools. The manner of standing, of walk- 
ing, the position and movements of arms and hands, 
dress, speech, gestures, and even facial expression all 
were punctiliously regulated. The rules of conduct 
copied in a monastic student's notebook recently dis- 
covered prescribe that the young man is to kneel when 
answering the Abbot, not to take a seat unasked, not 
to loll against the wall, nor fidget with things within 
reach. He is not to scratch himself nor cross his legs 
like a tailor. He is to wash his hands before meals, 
keep his knife sharp and clean, not to seize upon 
vegetables, not to use his spoon in the common dish. 
(See pp. 155-156.) 

6. Industrial Training. — The Benedictine and 
other rules which prescribed regular manual labor 
for the monks made many of the monasteries centers 
of the industrial arts. According to Schuster the 
wealthy Benedictine monasteries at St. Gall, Hir- 
schau, Corvey, Strassburg, Bremen, and elsewhere 
were famous for their skilled architects, sculptors, 
painters, and goldsmiths. Even Chaucer's delinquent 
monk, it will be remembered, " hadde of gold 
ywrought a curious pin." As demands for the 
products of skilled workmanship increased, the 
monks were forced to call in laymen to their assist- 
ance and, according to Schuster, among these work- 
men are to be traced the origins of the craft guilds. 

7. The Later Monastic Orders. — ^When in the 
thirteenth century the Benedictine Order, grown 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS I33 

wealthy, relapsed into a condition of indolence and 
worldly-mindedness typified by the monks of Chau- 
cer's prologue, monastic school-work fell largely into 
the hands of the younger and more vigorous orders, 
the Franciscans and the Dominicans, whose influence 
was felt not only in the lower schools but in the 
universities. 

{b) CATHEDRAL AND COLLEGIATE CHURCH SCHOOLS 

I. The Collegiate Church. — ^The changes most af- 
fecting the history of non-professional schools took 
place in the schools attached to the cathedrals and the 
collegiate churches. A collegiate church differed from 
a cathedral only in not having a resident bishop. It 
was a large church supported by endowment. Its 
functions were administered by a college, that is a 
collection or company of ecclesiastics consisting of 
a dean, canons, deacons, clerks, etc. Later there was 
a tendency to restrict the term to the clerical corpora- 
tions of the churches at the university centers. Hence 
the modern acceptation of the term. But organized 
bodies of clergy connected with the large churches 
were originally just as much * colleges,' that is, corpo- 
rations, as those at the universities. From the first 
an essential function of these church colleges was 
the maintenance of a grammar school. 

Notwithstanding occasional movements to restrict 
admission to those taking up the clerical career, the 
schools of the cathedrals and collegiate churches seem 
to have exercised a much wider and more direct in- 
fluence upon tKe laity than did those of the monas- 



134 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

teries. Alcuin's biographer tells us that Albert at 
the York cathedral school had round him " a flock 
of scholars from the sons of gentlemen," of whom 
only " some " were instructed " In the divine writ- 
ings." Leach goes so far as to say that the cathedral 
school at York was '' no mere choristers' school or 
ecclesiastical seminary," but that its students were 
" much the same kind as in the public school 
to-day." 

2. The Grammar School. — The cathedral and col- 
lege schools are so nearly identical in character that 
they may be discussed together. They performed a 
variety of educational functions. The cathedral or 
college grammar school afforded an education to the: 
youth, usually of aristocratic birth, who were destined: 
for ecclesiastical preferment, and to such lay students: 
as desired a more advanced school education. The: 
head of the school was frequently known as the: 
Scholastlcus. In the early times the custom arose of: 
appointing the Scholastlcus, on account of his learn- 
ing, to the position of Chancellor. Hence later the 
two titles became practically synonymous. 

3. The Song School. — The song school of the 
cathedral or collegiate church was apparently quite 
distinct from the grammar school. It was under the 
direction of the Precentor and was attended by poor 
students who in return for board, lodging, and tuition 
performed the duties of choristers. In the records 
of the cathedral school at York for 1307, Richard 
Craven agrees to teach and board seven choristers 
for 4s. 8d. a week. 



I 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 135 

The Close school in Salisbury was founded by 
Bishop Prove for the education of the choristers of 
the cathedral and endowed with £35 per annum. 
The choristers were eight In number and were clothed 
and instructed In Latin, writing, and arithmetic. In the 
song school the poor students, from which usually the 
ranks of the country clergy were recruited, obtained 
not only a musical but a general literary education. 
(See p. 93.) In time its work became confined to 
that of elementary instruction. It became a part of 
the regular duties of the song schoolmaster, i.e. the 
assistant to the Precentor, to teach ' the petties,' i.e. 
reading and writing. The older song-school pupil, 
to whom Chaucer's little chorister appeals for a trans- 
lation of the Latin hymn, explains his inability to give 
it, by saying 

" I learne song, I can but smal grammere." 

{'Prioresses Tale' v. 84.) 

Those of its students who needed more advanced 
instruction entered the grammar school. In 13 12 a 
dispute arose between the grammar and song school- 
masters of Beverley, as to whether all the choristers 
of the church, or only the original number of seven, 
were to be admitted free to the grammar school. 
The question was settled in favor of the former 
alternative. 

Much difficulty arose in determining at what stage 
in the course of study the work of the song school 
ended and that of the grammar school began. In 
Warwick, for Instance, both schools claimed the 



136 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Donatists or the pupils who were studying elementary- 
Latin grammar. The settlement of the dispute is 
set forth in the Statutes of St. Mary of Warwick 
dating from the thirteenth century: "That all ma- 
terial for strife and disagreement which we learn has 
hitherto arisen between the Master and the Music 
Schoolmaster over the Donatists and little ones learn- 
ing their first letters and the Psalter may be put a 
stop to forever, after due inquiry in the matter and 
with advice of our brethren, and so that the Masters 
of each of them may receive their due, and that undue 
encroachment of scholars on one side and the other 
may cease for the future; we decree and direct to 
be inviolably observed that the present Grammar 
Master and his successors shall have the Donatists, 
and thenceforward have, keep, and teach scholars 
in grammar or the art of dialectic, if he shall be ex- 
pert in that Art, while the Music Master shall keep 
and teach those learning their first letters, the psalter, 
music, and song.'* The question was settled differ- 
ently at different times and places. 

Under certain conditions where the church and its 
schools were small, both seem to have been under the 
direction of the same teacher. Leach suggests that 
the combination of the two schools was necessitated 
by the scarcity of teachers resulting from the ravages 
of the Black Death. 

The song school was probably attended not only 
by the regular choristers, but by others who sought 
an elementary or a musical education, and the latter 
seem to have paid fees. Hence probably the keen- 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 137 

ness of the above-mentioned contest between the two 
schools over the Donatists, and hence the hostility of 
both, illustrated elsewhere (see pp. 140-142), to- 
ward rival schools. 

Of the students of the grammar school, the regular 
clerical students for whom the school was primarily 
established, the ' scolares canonici,' held prebends, 
which paid their expenses. Along with these 
* scolares canonici,' who were frequently of noble 
birth, some lay pupils of equal rank were received. 
Alcuin specifically refers to the students at York be- 
fore his time as being sons of the nobility, some of 
whom pursued ecclesiastical while others pursued 
secular studies. The latter paid fees which in some 
instances were considerable. 

4. Support of Poor Students. — But in both schools 
there were frequently numerous poor students in addi- 
tion to those members of the song school who sup- 
ported themselves by acting as choristers. For the 
support of these, various means were devised some 
of which are still employed. Some churches had 
large endowments for the support of poor students. 
The cathedral school at Bamberg, for instance, 
attracted many students because of the numerous 
medieval scholarships and fellowships it was able to 
bestow. Bequests for the support of poor students 
at various schools were so frequent that it is not 
necessary to cite examples. Even the cities through 
which the wandering students passed had arrange- 
ments of various sorts for affording them food and 
lodging. la some there were regular endowments 



138 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

for this purpose. Some pupils received aid in return 
for participation In chantry services. Others earned 
money by carrying holy water to the sick. At Win- 
chester a statute of the thirteenth century gave stu- 
dents the exclusive right to perform this service: 
*' In churches which are near the schools of the city 
of Winchester . . . the holy water is to be given 
to be carried only by their scholars." Students re- 
ceived money also for special services on festival 
occasions. Some maintained themselves by begging. 

These special privileges enjoyed by students natu- 
rally attracted to their ranks many of the idle and 
the unworthy. So numerous did they become that in 
France they organized into a society, calling them- 
selves Goliards after Golias, their invisible head. 
The number of poor pupils received was in some 
institutions strictly limited. In St. Peter's in Basle 
it was prescribed in 1233 that only ten poor pupils 
were to be received. Unscrupulous parents some- 
times availed themselves of these generous provisions 
in order to relieve themselves of the support of their 
children. In a school regulation of Worms in 1260 
it is stated that " The children of poor people which 
are sent to school, in order that they might be sup- 
plied there with food, are not to be admitted to the 
ABC until they have paid at least 20 heller, and 
for the reason that only too often a crowd of such 
people had come to the school to whom the means of 
subsistence afforded by the school was a matter of 
greater importance than the learning." 

The poor seem to have received separate instruc- 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 1 39 

tlon and seldom came into intimate relations with the 
' scolares canonici,' or the aristocratic secular students. 

Though the song and grammar schools were dis- 
tinct institutions, this did not preclude the pupils of 
the latter from obtaining in the former their instruc-^ 
tion in music, just as, on the other hand, it did not 
prevent the pupils of the song school from continuing 
their studies in the grammar school. 

5. Private Collegiate Establishments.. — Great dig- 
nitaries sometimes maintained a college of ecclesias- 
tics in connection with their private chapels. And 
here as elsewhere the college maintained a grammar 
school. ^' Every great man," says Stubbs, " had a 
great house and household with his chapel or col- 
legiate church at his capital house and his school of 
clerks as well as pages." The household college of 
chaplains of Archbishop Theobald satisfied to some 
extent the need that was afterwards met by the uni- 
versity system. Archbishop A'Becket had among his 
chaplains a staff of professors on a small scale: this 
one skilled in canon law, that one in historic prece- 
dent; one to whom they looked when an apposite 
quotation was wanted, another who had pretensions 
to be a philosopher. Much later in history we find 
the Earl of Northumberland employing his private 
college of priests In a variety of ways. On his house- 
hold records they are listed as follows: '' A priest to 
be dean of my lord's chapel, a priest to be surveyor 
of my lord's lands, another to be secretary, one to be 
almoner, a sub-dean to keep the choir, a riding chap- 
Jain, a chaplain to the eldest son, a clerk of the closet, 



140 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

a master of grammar, a reader of the gospel, one to 
sing Our Lady's mass." In such households young 
noblemen and others often acquired the training 
requisite for a career as statesmen. 

6. The Scholasticus and the Clerical Control of 
the Schools. — The fact that the cathedral grammar 
school was likewise open to the laity had important 
consequences for the future of elementary and sec- 
ondary education. As the students flocked to the 
cathedral school in continually increasing numbers, 
the Scholasticus became a supervisor and appointed 
others as teachers, first in the cathedral, and then In 
the supplementary schools established elsewhere in 
the diocese. Thus, through growth of custom, the 
Scholasticus came to be recognized as the official in 
control of the schools and teachers within the limits 
of the jurisdiction of the cathedral chapter. He Is- 
sued licenses to teach, the prototypes of the university 
diplomas of later times. The decree of the Lateran 
Council in 1179, already quoted, requires that the 
Scholastici " should have authority to superintend all 
the schoolmasters of the diocese and grant them 
licenses without which none should presume to teach." 
It is important to note here the development of that 
clerical control of the education of the laity which 
is still noticeable in England, Germany, and else- 
where. This assumed power of the Scholasticus, or 
Chancellor, was not, however, undisputed. In 1375 
the Scholasticus of York cathedral complained that 
Mr. Nicholas, of Ferriby, without permission of the 
former, was keeping a grammar school within the 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 141 

jurisdiction of the chapter " heedlessly and unjustly, 
to the gross prejudice and loss of the Scholasticus, 
and Mr. John, of York, Rector of Our Grammar 
School of York." 

In Hamburg, Germany, in 1402, the Scholasticus 
claimed control of the four writing schools established 
by the city council. In the struggle that followed the 
council was laid under the ban of the Church, from 
which it was freed only by defraying the costs of the 
contest and abdicating all right of erecting Its own 
writing schools. " Liibeck, in a struggle with the 
clergy over the same question, was laid under an In- 
terdict. [See p. 163.] In 141 8 the city admitted the 
right of the Scholasticus to direct the schools, to ap- 
point and dismiss teachers. Further It agreed to hand 
over to the Scholasticus one-third of the fees from 
the writing schools." 

Canon VIII, of 1200, shows that some church 
officials were by that time making this right a source 
of Income. It reads, " Let nothing be exacted for 
hcenses to teach." The fashion set by some of the 
Scholastic! of retaining the greater part of the emolu- 
ments of a position while delegating its duties to an- 
other seems to have spread, for Canon XVII reads, 
*' V^e ordain that if schoolmasters hire out their 
schools to be governed by others, they must be liable 
to ecclesiastical punishment." The authoritative tone 
of the canon suggests to what degree clerical control 
had become established. 

7. The Precentor, — The Precentor, like the Scho- 
lasticus, claimed absolute control of the teaching of 



142 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

his particular subject within the cathedral district. 
In 1367, for instance, Mr. Adam, Precentor of the 
cathedral school of York, complained that " Whereas 
by immemorial custom the keeping school in the city 
of York for teaching boys singing, ought to be held 
in a certain place belonging to the cathedral church, 
, . . divers chaplains, holy water carriers, and 
many others actually keep song schools ... in 
parish churches, houses, and other places in York to 
the no small prejudice and grievance of the Pre- 
centor." The Precentor, like the Scholasticus, usually 
handed over the actual work of teaching to a deputy. 
The Richard Craven referred to on p. 134 was en- 
gaged by the Precentor not only to board but also to 
teach the seven choristers. 

(c) PARISH SCHOOLS 

The need of trained assistants in conducting reli- 
gious services, which in the cathedral and collegiate 
churches gave rise to the song schools, was felt also 
in the smaller churches and led to the establishment 
of parish schools. That the purpose of these schools 
was merely that of giving instruction in religion and 
in the music and ceremonial of the Church seems to 
be indicated in the following decretal of Gregory IX : 
" Let every priest who has a cure, have a clerk, who 
may sing with him and read the epistle and the lesson, 
and who is able to keep school [scholas tenere] and 
to admonish his parishioners that they send their sons 
to the church to learn the faith; and who may teach 
them with all chastity." A gloss adds '' Scolas: for 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS I43 

teaching boys the psaltery and singing." A thirteenth 
century statute of the diocese of Winchester urges 
upon the clergy the duty of maintaining these schools : 
" Let Rectors, Vicars, and Parish Priests see that the 
boys of their parishioners know the Lord's Prayer, 
the Creed, and the Salutation of the Virgin, and to 
sign themselves rightly with the sign of the cross ; and 
the parents of the boys should be induced to let their 
boys, after they know how to read the Psalter, learn 
singing also; lest by chance after they have learnt 
higher subjects they should be obliged to go back to 
this, or, being ignorant of it, should be always less 
fit for divine service." Where conditions were favor- 
able and the need was felt, the course of study of 
the parish school was expanded so as to afford more 
or less of a general education. An example of this is 
found in a parish school in Breslau in the thirteenth 
century. On the petition of the Dean and Chapter of 
Breslau, the Papal Legate, Guido, in 1257 appoints 
" that there may be within the walls of the city of 
Breslau near the church of St. Mary Magdalen a 
school in which little boys may be taught the alphabet, 
the Lord's Prayer, and the Salutation of the Virgin 
with the Creed, Psalter and seven psalms; they may 
learn there also in the same schools Donatus, Cato, 
and Theodulus and the Rules for Boys [regulas 
pueriles]. If the boys wish to learn more advanced 
books, they must transfer to the schools of St. John 
in the castle or wherever they wish." The above 
examples suffice to show what is confirmed by the 
further data we possess regarding the parish schools, 



144 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

namely, that In aim and character of their work it is 
impossible to draw a definite line of distinction be- 
tween them and the schools of the cathedral and 
collegiate churches. Like the latter the parish schools 
were primarily established in part to supply the need 
for trained leaders and assistants or participants in 
the services of the Church, and in part to afford sys- 
tematic religious instruction. The ends to be accom- 
plished in all three schools were essentially the same, 
and in attaining them a longer or shorter stretch of 
the same curriculum was followed. 

As to the frequency with which schools were main- 
tained in connection with parish churches during the 
Middle Ages opinions differ. Quite a number of the 
Roman Catholic writers such as Janssen, Drane, and 
Brother Azarias believe that a relatively large pro- 
portion of the people received a general education in 
the Middle Ages through the agency of the parish 
school. 

The arguments against this view are summed up in 
Sander, * Geschichte der Volksschule,' and in Schmid, 
* Geschichte der Erziehung ' (pp. 10-24). 

These schools seem to have varied widely as to the 
amount of instruction which they afforded. The ex- 
hortations to the priests on this matter, such as those 
just quoted, suggest that in the smaller parishes there 
were frequently no schools at all, and that even where 
they existed the work was often restricted to training 
the young to intelligent participation in church serv- 
ices and religious doctrine. That in many instances 
little beyond this was attempted is no reproach to the 



THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH SCHOOLS 145 

Church. Before the Invention of printing, books were 
rare and expensive. Ability to read was of little con- 
sequence to the poorer classes of the laity for the 
simple reason that there was practically nothing for 
them to read. 

Book learning remained largely a peculiar posses- 
sion of the clergy. " You laymen," said Berthold 
of Regensburg, the great preacher of the thirteenth 
century, " cannot read as we parsons can." The 
vigorous growth throughout Europe in the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries of literature In the vernacu- 
lar, Indicates, however, that ability to read was be- 
coming more common. 

The decretal of Gregory IX quoted above shows 
that the Instruction was given by the parish priest or 
his assistant. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CLASSIFICATION OF SCHOOLS AS TO 
METHOD OF MAINTENANCE 

But if the parish priest or his assistant did not 
usually conduct a school as a part of his regular 
duties, the growing educational needs of the time 
were met by the establishment of schools more or 
less closely attached to the Church. These schools, 
whether petty schools or Latin schools, possessed 
nothing distinctive as regards course of study, and 
may best be classified according to the means by which 
they were maintained. 

The form which these educational institutions took 
was determined largely by the religious beliefs of the 
time and particularly by the belief in purgatory. It 
was held that one's sins condemned him not always 
to everlasting punishment but frequently to long 
periods of expiatory and purifying suffering in purga- 
tory. It was believed further that this period could 
be shortened through the saying of masses. This is 
one of the reasons for the numerous and munificent 
endowments of monasteries and collegiate churches 
in the Middle Ages. They were great religious insti- 
tutions, one of the purposes of the endowment of 
which was that of securing the welfare of the souls 
of their founders. 

146 



SCHOOLS CLASSIFIED AS TO MAINTENANCE 147 

I. Chantry Schools. — But there were compara- 
tively few, even among the nobility, who could afford 
to endow monasteries. Hence, instead of establish- 
ing a whole community of monks or priests, a man 
would bequeath property, the income from which 
would support one or two priests to chant at stated 
intervals masses for his soul. Such an institution was 
a chantry. As the chantry priest had usually much 
spare time on his hands, he, sometimes at the request 
of the founder, sometimes on his own initiative, 
taught school. Hence a class of chantry schools. 
The post of chantry priest was apparently one of ease 
and comparative independence, at any rate one of the 
merits of Chaucer's faithful parson was that 

" He sette not his benefice to hyre 
And leet his scheep encombred in the myre 
And ran to Londone, unto seynte Poules 
To seeken him a chaunterie for soules 
Or with a bretherhede to ben withholde." 

Archbishop Islip complains of the clergy " That 
they wholly refuse as parish priests to serve in 
churches or chapels — though fitting salaries are of- 
fered them — that they may live in a leisurely manner, 
by celebrating annals for the quick and the dead." 

The manner in which school-work was connected 
with the chantries can best be shown by an example. 
An extract from the will of Sir Edmund Shaa or 
Shaw reads as follows: "And I woll, that the other 
honest Priest" (the first being appointed to preach 
at Woodhead Chapel) " be a discreet man and con- 



148 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ning in Gramer, and be able of connylng to teche 
Gramer. And I woll that he sing his Masse, and 
say his other divyne Service ... at souch an aul- 
ter there as can be thought convenient for hym, and 
to pray specially for my Soule, and the souls," etc. 
(enumerating certain others). . . . 

" And I woll that the same connying Priest keep a 
Gramer school continually in the said Town of Stop- 
forde, as long as he shall contyneue there in the said 
service. And that he frely, without any wages or 
salarye . . . except only my salarye . . . shal 
teche al maner person's children, and other that will 
come to him to lerne." 

2. Guild Schools. — But what was to become of the 
souls of those who had not the means to endow even 
chantries? Must they endure long ages of suffering 
for lack of prayers and masses? To avoid this it 
became quite common practice among the middle and 
lower classes in this age of unions or corporations to 
form religious guilds, one purpose of which was to 
secure the saying of masses for the souls of the de- 
ceased members. Each guild had its own priest who, 
sometimes, in addition to attending to the religious 
necessities of his patrons, taught their children in 
school. The same thing was done occasionally by the 
merchant or craft guilds established primarily for the 
organization and protection of commercial and indus- 
trial activities respectively. Hence a class of guild 
schools. 

Sometimes the great merchant or trade guilds acted 
as trust companies managing the funds of an endowed 



SCHOOLS CLASSIFIED AS TO MAINTENANCE 149 

school or chantry, or seeing to it that the wishes of the 
founders were carried out. John Colet, for instance, 
conveyed the whole of his estate in London to the 
Mercers' Company in trust for the endowment of 
his school at St. Paul's. A free grammar school 
was founded at Holt, date unknown, by Sir John 
Gresham, Alderman of London. The statutes pro- 
vided that the master and usher were to be nominated 
by the Fishmongers' Company, to whom he left the 

, patronage and government of the school. 

The religious and other guilds were, we should 
mention in passing, the charitable associations, the 
benefit and insurance societies of their times. 

3. Stipendiary Schools. — Property was sometimes 
left to endow a priest to assist in the services of a 
church or to say mass in honor of some favorite saint, 
frequently the Virgin Mary. Those holding such 
positions were known as stipendiary priests. Like the 
chantry priests they, sometimes on their own initiative 
or again in conformity with the wishes of the founder, 
taught school. For example, in the chantry certificate 
reports concerning Alton we find, " A stipendiary 
priest. Founded by one John Chawnflower to have 
continuance forever to the Intent to assist ministration 
In the church of Alton and to teach the children 

I grammar." 

^ 4. Morrow Mass Schools. — Another of the great 
variety of ways In which schools sprouted out from 
the ancient and complex organization of the Church 

i is illustrated In the case of Pountfrett. Here there 

i was an endowment for a morrow mass priest, that Is, 



150 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

a priest who was to say mass early In the morning 
so that laborers going to work could attend. Among 
the other duties of this priest were those of surveying 
the mending of highways and of teaching a gram- 
mar school. Commenting on this Leach says, " Hav- 
ing got up so early the priest did other odd jobs 
such as acting as highway surveyor, while he not un- 
frequently eked out his time by teaching the early- 
rising schoolboy, and so not a few grammar schools 
owe their origin to the morrow mass." 

5. Hospital Schools.— Many schools originated in 
connection with hospitals, that Is, almhouses. For 
example, we find concerning the grammar school at 
Huntingdon, that " The endowment now forms part 
of the revenue of the master and co-frater of the 
Hospital of St. John, founded — in the reign of Henry 
II — for the relief of the poor people and the keep- 
ing of a free grammar school at the cost and charge 
of the master of said house." The almshouse and 
grammar school at Ewelme were founded by the Duke 
of Suffolk and his wife Alice, the granddaughter of 
the poet Chaucer, in the reign of Henry VI for " two 
prestes and thirteen pore men " — the second priest 
to be " a wele disposed man apte and able to teach- 
ylng of gramer to whose office it shall long and per- 
tain diligently to teache and inform childer In the 
facultie of gramer — without exaccion of any Scole- 
hire." 

The Extracts from the Chantry Certificates se- 
lected by Leach and the numerous records referred 
to by Specht, show how extensive both In England 



SCHOOLS CLASSIFIED AS TO MAINTENANCE 15 1 

and on the continent were the provisions for school 
education in connection with these various religious 
foundations. 

To this setting apart of landed and other property 
for securing the welfare of the souls of the dead a 
limit would sooner or later have to be set as the num- 
ber of generations to be thus provided for Increased. 
In both England and Germany the coming of this 
crisis was hastened by a change of religious belief, 
the Reformation. The secularization of the property 
of these religious foundations Is one of the most 
momentous events in the history of the schools In the 
period of the Reformation, and will be discussed later 
under that head. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCA- 
TIONAL INSTITUTIONS 

INFLUENCE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY RENAISSANCE 
UPON THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries are character- 
ized by great progress in almost all phases of human 
activity. This vigorous onward movement not only 
produced marked changes in the work of the schools 
already existing but It opened the way for the de- 
velopment of systems of non-religious, non-profes- 
sional instruction outside the pale of the Church. 
Signs of reappearance of systems of lay instruction 
are to be noted earliest among the noble and gentle 
classes. 

Chivalrous Education. — One result of the lack of 
any permanent, powerful centralized government in 
Western Europe after the decay of the Roman em- 
pire, was that men were led to depend more upon 
isolation, upon military prowess, and upon fortified 
strongholds as means of securing life, liberty, and 
possessions. The weaker purchased security through 
the sacrifice of their independence to the strong. Thus 
developed the feudal system. The lord and his de- 
pendents dwelt upon the manor, which in the dark- 

15a 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 1 53 

est ages was practically an independent economic 
unit. 

Previous to the invention of gunpowder the lord of 
the manor not only possessed in his castle a powerful 
means of defense in case of attack, but with his horse 
and his armor he was the man most formidable in 
battle. The horseman or knight thus becomes a 
prominent figure in early medieval society. The ro- 
mantic, adventurous, religious, and altruistic enter- 
prises of the Crusades brought this class into still 
greater prominence and led to the gradual evolution 
of an ideal of knightly character which found 
embodiment in numberless noble and picturesque 
forms in art and literature. In this way this ideal 
was made definite and permanent, so much so that 
it is vivid in the popular imagination even of 
to-day. 

With the advance of civilization and the widening 
of social intercourse, social standards of knightly 
accomplishments became so high as to necessitate 
something approaching systematic instruction or 
school-work. So definite were these standards and 
so widely acknowledged during the twelfth, thir- 
teenth, and fourteenth centuries that this period may 
rightly be called ' The Age of Chivalry.' The 
characteristics of the ideal knight were, as we should 
expect considering his relation to the rest of society, 
largely physical and, though in part esthetic and even 
literary, were by no means bookish. The knight's 
estimate of mere book learning is expressed In an old 
Scottish ballad : 



154 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

"We thynk thame verray natural fulis 
That learnis ouir meikle at the sculis 
Schfr, ye mon leir to ryn and speir, 
And gyde you lyke ane man of weir." 

The development of chivalrous education was fur- 
thered by the curious custom of fostering, by which 
children of a nobleman were sent to be brought up in 
the house of another, usually more powerful and 
eminent, noble. Thus we read in the biography of a 
m.edieval knight, " When the child was seven years 
old they sent it to Joce de Dynanin at Ludlow Castle 
to teach and nourish; for Joce was a knight of good 
accomplishment. Joce received him with great honor 
and affection and educated him in his chambers with 
his own children." Fulke, the younger, in the next 
generation, was taken by King Henry II as his foster- 
child and was nourished and educated with the young 
princes, of whom John proved a bad foster-brother. 
The great barons sought to form alliances of this 
kind with the king as with his great ministers and 
other men of power. 

The purpose of this education, during the period 
when the ideals and customs of chivalry prevailed 
among the upper classes, was the development of the 
well-known traits of a knightly character : prowess in 
battle, physical strength and skill, courtesy, grace of 
manner, courage, honor, generosity, magnanimity. 
To these were added pleasing social accomplishments 
such as skill in composing and singing songs, in danc- 
ing, etc. 

The duties of the * Maistyr of Henxmen ' (" young 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 1 55 

gentylmen, Henxmen, — VI Enfauntes, or more, as it 
shall please the KInge") to his pupils at the court 
of Edward IV are stated as follows, " To shew the 
schooles of urbanitie and nourture of England, to 
lerne them to ryde clenely and surely ; to drawe them 
also to justes; to lerne them were theyre harneys; 
to have all curtesy in wordes, dedes, and degrees; 
diligently to kepe them in the rules of goynges and 
sittinges, after they be of honour. Moreover to teche 
them sondry languages, and othyr lerninges vertuous, 
to harping, to pype, sing, dance; and with other 
honest behaviour and patience." 

Perhaps the best account of the results of a com- 
plete chivalrous education that we have is found in 
Chaucer's description of the squire: 

"Wei cowde he sitte on hors, and faire ryde. 
He cowde songes make and wel endite, 
Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write — 
Curteys he was, lowly and servysable 
And carf byforn his fader at the table." 

Great emphasis was laid upon manners. This 
feature of the education of the upper and middle 
classes is reflected in Chaucer's description of the 
knight, the squire, and the nun. The knight 

" lovede chivalrfe, 
Trouthe and honour, fredome and curteisye." 

The same was true of the nun. 

" In curteisye was set full muche hire leste." 



156 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

The ballad literature In numerous passages gives 
evidence of this tendency in the education of the time, 

"It was the worthy Lord of Leaven, 
he was a lord of high degree, 
he had noe more children but just one sonne, 
he sett him to schoole to learne curtesie." 

This feature of the aristocratic education seems 
to have been taken over Into the developing middle 
class education, and gave rise to a curiously large 
number of popular books on manners and etiquette. 
As we have seen, great attention was paid to manners 
In monastic and church schools of the time (see p. 
132) . Books on deportment were used as texts (e.g. 
the ' Rules for Boys' mentioned on p. 143). This 
fashion survived to become a feature even of colonial 
education In America. Christopher Dock, the emi- 
nent teacher among the German colonists of Penn- 
sylvania, drew up * A Hundred Necessary Rules of 
Conduct for Children.' The following extracts are 
representative of the contents of the entire class of 
books : 

" 2. When you have left your bed turn back the covers. 

5. Accustom yourself to dress quickly and at the same 
time neatly. 

7. When you wash your face and hands do not splash the 
water about the room. 

9. In combing your hair do not stand In the middle of the 
room but in a corner. 

II. Do not eat your breakfast on the street or In school, 
but ask your parents .to give it to you at home. 

49. The bread that Is left over, do not put Into your 
pocket. Let It lie on the table." 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION I57 

Winchester College, established in the fourteenth 
century, has as its motto " Manners makyth 
man." 

From seven to fourteen the boy acted as a page, 
waiting upon the lords and ladies of the household. 
In the society of these he acquired some of the finer 
knightly accomplishments, habits of courtesy, dis- 
tinction of manners. Such literary training as was 
felt to be requisite was obtained frequently under the 
instruction of the chaplain. 

From the age of fourteen on, the youth was in 
attendance upon the knight, and received a training 
in the more manly exercises of the hunt, the joust, 
and in actual warfare. Upon the completion of this 
period the squire became a knight. Initiation into this 
degree was often accompanied by impressive religious 
rites. 

EXTENSION OF THE MEANS OF EDUCATION AMONG THE 
MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES 

The breaking up of the condition of Industrial and 
commercial paralysis which prevailed in the early 
Middle Ages (see p. 152) was accelerated by the 
Crusades. The sight of strange lands, the contact 
with a variety of strange peoples, some of them 
highly civilized, acquaintance with the various ways 
of living, the customs and religious beliefs could not 
fail to so broaden the sympathies of the Western Eu- 
ropeans and their outlook on life as to work a mo- 
mentous change In life and thought. Concomitant 
with this intellectual awakening and related to it, both 



158 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

as cause and effect, was the restoration of order. 
The Northmen, the scourge of the preceding cen- 
turies, had become transformed into the Christian 
and civihzed Normans. The wise and strong rule 
of the Ottos in Germany had done much to repress 
lawlessness and injustice. 

The influence of these movements upon the aristoc- 
racy and the Church was a mixed one. The enor- 
mous expense of the expeditions impoverished the 
former, the failure of the enterprises affected the 
prestige of the Church. Upon the middle and lower 
classes, however, the influence of these great move- 
ments was beneficial. Not only the serfs who re- 
turned from a crusade, but many of those who re- 
mained became freemen. The bustle and stir of the 
times, the more abundant and wide-reaching inter- 
course among peoples broke up the isolation of 
manorial life and accelerated the development of the 
industries and commerce. 

The intercourse of the people of the East and the 
West greatly increased among the latter the knowl- 
edge of and taste for a variety of commodities which, 
at first luxuries, soon came to be looked upon as the 
necessities of life. These included not only important 
natural products such as rice, Indian wheat, sugar- 
cane, plums, apricots, lemons, watermelons; but 
manufactured articles, muslin, satin, damask, fine 
leather, rugs, tapestries, pottery, and important in- 
ventions such as the windmill. Not only did the 
Crusaders create a demand for these things but they 
developed that skill in navigation and that knowledge 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 159 

of trade routes which made it possible to satisfy it. 
The result was a period of great commercial activity. 
Parallel with this development of commercial activ- 
ity and springing from like causes, was a vigorous 
growth of the industries. The growth of civiliza- 
tion increased the demand for manufactured articles, 
and an increasing proportion of the population from 
being mere general agricultural laborers became 
skilled workmen. 

The conditions both of industry and of commerce 
led to the grouping of those engaged in them in towns 
or cities. In accordance with the necessities and cus- 
toms of the times the owners of land in these cities 
formed a union or guild, the citizen or merchant 
guild for the greater security of life and property 
and the better regulation of city life. Through these 
they acquired a considerable measure of political 
freedom. 

City Grammar Schools. — ^The significant point in 
all this is the coming to the front in the society of 
Western Europe of another class, the so-called 
burgher or citizen class which from now on is to take, 
on the whole, an increasing share in the direction of 
human affairs. The increasing wealth and leisure of 
this class created a corresponding demand for a lib- 
eral education. The cathedral and collegiate schools 
not being sufficiently numerous to meet this demand, 
other schools were established at points within the 
city or diocese convenient for their patrons. Though 
maintained by the municipality or by private endow- 
ment these schools were usually considered as an- 



l6o HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

nexes of the central cathedral and college schools, 
and hence under the control of the Scholasticus. In 
numerous instances, however, this authority was ac- 
knowledged only after a determined struggle. In 
1508 "the Provost and the Burgesses of Glasgow 
objected to the presentee of the Chancellor of the 
diocese, and claimed that the right of presentation to 
the Grammar School belonged to themselves. They 
did not succeed in their claim." In Aberdeen the 
quarrel, after lasting nearly half a century, was de- 
cided in favor of the town. In Hamburg the struggle 
over the same question lasted nine years. 

In these city Latin grammar schools sometimes 
only the more elementary stages of the conventional 
course of study were taught. Their subordinate rela- 
tion to the cathedral school was shown in that, on 
festival occasions, all the pupils assembled within the 
walls of the latter. Not only were these outlying 
schools under clerical control but their teachers were 
members of the clergy. Nevertheless, in this merely 
local separation of the school from the church 
grounds we may trace perhaps the faintest beginnings 
of lay school instruction. From the middle of the 
thirteenth century on, even the smallest cities had 
schools in which children destined for lay careers 
could obtain an elementary education. 

The Rise of the Folk-School — ^While the Latin 
grammar schools were thus beginning to break away 
from this intimate association with the Church, the 
germs of the great modern folk-school were slowly 
assuming definite form among the mass of the people 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION l6l 

In the larger centers of population. For the folk- 
school, though In various features of Its organization 
and Its methods It continued the traditions of the 
higher and older schools of the clerical and of the 
upper classes, was essentially an outgrowth not of 
the Church or of the state, but of the thriving in- 
dustrial and commercial life amidst the rank and file 
of the people. There were elementary schools con- 
nected with the churches and the monasteries, but 
they were designed primarily to prepare for the gram- 
mar school or for participation in church services 
rather than to meet the educational requirements of 
the everyday life of the ordinary citizen. The folk- 
schools greatly Increased in number after the inven- 
tion of printing. They were the result of the sys- 
tematlzatlon of the activities of the hitherto unlettered 
classes in learning and teaching the fundamental arts 
of reading, writing, and calculation. They were 
originally private enterprises, and the great majority 
of them remained so. Their character, determined 
as it was solely by local conditions, was extremely 
varied. This is Indicated by the great number of 
different names by which they are known. They 
ranged from the dame, petty, hedge, and girls' 
(Maldhn) schools to the semi-professional writing 
and reckoning schools which seem to correspond to 
the business schools and colleges of to-day. These 
will be discussed In another paragraph. Under 
favorable conditions the work in some instances be- 
came so advanced as to encroach upon that of the 
grammar school. It was found necessary in Edin- 



1 62 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

burgh In 15 19 to restrict the course of study in the 
folk-schools to " grace-buik, prymar, and plane 
donatt." These schools of the vernacular were dis- 
tinguished further through the fact that they were 
frequently conducted by women. Hence the name 
* Dame School/ The story of the school in the 
Reformation and subsequent periods centers about 
the gradual rise of these folk-schools into great state 
institutions. 

Writing and Reckoning Schools. — The vigorous 
development of commerce created a much greater de- 
mand than formerly for instruction in writing and 
arithmetic. Provision for this need was made occa- 
sionally even in the ecclesiastical schools. For in- 
stance, in the statutes of the Rothertham College 
school the following passage occurs: "As that land 
sends forth many youths endowed with bright and 
acute minds who do not all wish to attain the high 
dignity of the priesthood, that they may be better 
fitted for the mechanical arts and other worldly con- 
cerns, we have established a third fellow skilled in 
the art of writing and in the science of arithmetic." 
Again at Acaster in 1483 there were schools con- 
nected with the church, " Three divers masters and 
informators in the faculties underwritten — one of 
them to teach grammar, another to teach music, and 
the third to teach to write and all such things as be- 
long to the scrivener^s craft." But more frequently this 
instruction seems to have been acquired privately, or 
in lay writing or reckoning schools taught often by 
professional scriveners or accountants. In some in- 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 1 63 

Stances these schools were maintained by the mu- 
nicipality. In Germany in 1262 the city council of 
Liibeck had wrung from the clergy permission to es- 
tablish four writing schools wherein only German, 
reading, and writing were to be taught (" dar men 
allenen schal lernen kinderen lesen unde scryven in 
dem dudeschen unde anderes nerghen ane " ) . 

Private Tutors. — In wealthy and aristocratic fami- 
lies private tutors were employed in the elementary 
instruction of the children. Reference to tutors is 
made in 1410 in the decision on the famous Glouces- 
ter case. It reads, " If a man retain a master in his 
house to teach his children he damages the common 
master of the town, yet I believe that he has no 
action." 

. The Status of the Teacher. — The heads of the 
grammar and song schools held, as already noted, 
positions of great dignity and influence, but they soon 
came to be school directors rather than members of 
the teaching profession. 

Previous to the Reformation the teachers in the 
various classes of grammar schools were, as a rule, 
clergymen. The clerical and teaching professions 
were not definitely separated until about the time of 
the Reformation. Indeed grammar-school work in 
England is still, to a considerable degree, carried on 
by clergymen. 

The medieval grammar-school master was fre- 
quently distinguished by his learning from his fellow- 
priests. As the title ' Magister or Master ' indi- 
cates, they were sometimes graduates of universities. 



164 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Those who had not attained the above degree had 
the title ' Sir/ now pecuHar to knights and baronets, j 

" The pure priest thinkis he gets nae richt 
Be he nocht styllt like an Knycht 
And callit ' Schir ' before his name 
As Schir Thomas and Schir Williame." 

The rectors of the city grammar schools, particu- 
larly on the continent, depended mainly upon fees for 
support, the city providing only the building or at 
most a small part of the rector's income. If assist- 
ants were needed the rector had to engage and pay 
them himself. Teachers frequently eked out their 
meager income by serving as city clerks,^ choristers, 
ushers. Sometimes they engaged in business in a 
small way. Little regard was paid to the charac- 
ter of the teacher. They were sometimes expelled 
monks, dissipated students, or mere adventurers. 
The teachers in folk-schools were often vagabond 
students or manual laborers with a meager knowledge 
of the three R's, who supplemented their regular 
work by keeping a school, often In their workshop. 
Erasmus complains that, " No one is so abandoned, 
so useless, so insignificant that the common people do 
not consider him fit to conduct a^chool." 

Judicial Confirmation in England of the Right to 
Teach. — The schools of the Pre-Reformation period 
are distinguished from those of later times in the 
completeness of their subjection to clerical control. 

' Cf. Shakespeare, ' King Henry Sixth,' Pt. 2, Act 4, Sc. 2, 11. 
78-82. 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 165 

*' Whether," says Parmentier, " the schools were 
created by religious orders, by the secular clergy, by 
the kings, or the guilds, their organization was about 
the same. They were all equally under the super- 
vision and direction of the Church, which alone fur- 
nished the masters for them." 

Instances of rebellion against the authority of the 
clergy in school matters have already been noted. 
The famous Gloucester School Case led, in 14 10, to 
a declaration from the English bench of the right to 
teach as a doctrine of the common law. Two masters 
who had been appointed to the Gloucester Grammar 
School by the Prior of a neighboring monastery 
brought an action of trespass against a master who 
had ventured to teach another school in the same 
town. In the decision it was stated that the defendant 
had committed no offense against the common law of 
England, that " To teach youth is a virtuous and 
charitable thing to do, helpful to the people, for 
which he cannot be punished by our law." 

The Craft Guilds as Educational Institutions, — 
The rise in the social scale of those engaged in man- 
ual labor meant an increased demand from this class 
also for general culture. For, as was the case with 
the artizans described by Chaucer (ProL, v. 473), 
" catel hadde they ynough and rente." 

This general culture was acquired not only in the 
schools already described, but some measure of it at 
least seems to have been acquired along with the 
technical education afforded in the craft guilds. Be- 
cause of this and because these guilds seem to have 



1 66 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

been the models for certain features of the organiza- 
tion of universities, they deserve some attention here. 

It is significant that the Latin name of these corpo- 
rations is ' scholae,' i.e. schools, and that the regular 
members were known as ' magistri,' i.e. teachers. 

Throughout the darkest period of the Middle Ages 
the traditions of skilled handiwork were preserved 
largely in the great monasteries such as Fulda, Reich- 
enau, Corvey, St. Gall. The English monk Dunstan, 
in the tenth century, was so enthusiastic and skilful a 
worker in iron that he figures in folk-lore as one who 
had mysterious dealings with the supernatural pow- 
ers. As Archbishop of Canterbury he directed the 
priests to instruct the youth in trades. 

Among the arts thus cultivated in the monasteries 
was that of ecclesiastical architecture, an art brought 
later by medieval artizans to the highest degree of 
excellence. Many of the leaders in the monastic 
world were enthusiastic architects. Ratgar, one of 
the early abbots of Fulda, employed his monks so 
vigorously in building that they appealed to the 
Emperor for relief. 

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the 
monks found themselves unable to cope with the de- 
mands for the erection of churches and monastic 
buildings. Hence they were forced to call in the 
aid of laymen. Where a building required sev- 
eral years for its construction these workmen were 
organized into a lay brotherhood collateral with that 
of the monks. New members were instructed in the 
technique of the art. Later when the interest of 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 1 67 

bishops and abbots in building enterprises waned, the 
lay master builders separated themselves from the 
monasteries in which they had been educated and 
undertook independently great building contracts. 
, This occurred at a time when the cities were rising to 
a position of proud and conscious independence. 
Citizens, as formerly kings and bishops, took pride 
in adorning their city with magnificent buildings. 
National, religious, and individual yearnings and 
aspirations of this period of progress found ex- 
pression in a new style of architecture, the Gothic. 

The vastness and the multiplicity of artistic detail 
in the great Gothic cathedrals taxed the powers of 
the lay builders to the utmost. The large number of 
masters and apprentices employed on these structures 
organized into guilds, in which the knowledge and 
skill requisite to the practice of the trade was handed 
down from master to apprentice. The elaborate or- 
namentation of the Gothic architecture, the mechani- 
, cal difficulties to overcome, must have necessitated a 
I study of design, of mechanics, and of geometry of 
' high cultural value. Similar in its influence was that 
pride in workmanship which seems to have been 
fostered under the guild system. The workmen were 
\ divided into three classes : the apprentices, who were 
learning the trade; the fellow, fellowcraft, or journey- 
man, who had learned all that the master could 
teach him, but who still worked with him; and the 
master, who practised the trade as an independent 
workman and who gave instruction to apprentices 
and fellows. 



l68 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

RESUME AND CONCLUSION ON MEDIEVAL SCHOOLS AND 
SCHOOL-WORK 

Owing to the dominance of barbarian races and the 
instability of the political foundations of society pre- 
ceding and during the Middle Ages, the energies of 
men were employed more and more exclusively in 
the bare maintenance of existence, and civilization 
and culture rapidly declined. The non-professional 
schools in which this culture was cherished and per- 
petuated ceased to exist throughout the greater part 
of Western Europe. The clergy of the Christian 
Church had risen to a position of religious, moral, 
and intellectual leadership and more or less of the 
culture of the Roman schools, which had assumed a 
definite, fixed form as the seven liberal arts, was 
found to be indispensable in their professional 
training. 

This training was afforded in schools connected 
with the monasteries and with the cathedral, collegi- 
ate, and later even the larger of the ordinary parish 
churches. The work of these schools varied greatly 
from place to place and from time to time. In some 
only the bare essentials of the elementary course were 
taught. In the great schools the entire course, includ- 
ing the subjects of the quadrivium, was given. 

As society gradually regained stability of organiza- 
tion and laymen began again to feel the need of sys- 
tematic instruction in more or less of the liberal arts, 
they obtained it in these church schools. The grow- 
ing demand of the lay classes for liberal education 



BEGINNINGS OF LAY EDUCATION 1 69 

was met by the establishment of schools in connection 
with the various religious foundations which, as 
regards means of maintenance and external connec- 
tion, may be roughly classified Into chantry, stipendi- 
ary, guild, morrow-mass, and hospital schools. 

The fact that practically all the learning of the 
time was preserved In the Latin language made Latin 
grammar the main subject of study. As to content of 
course of study, the church schools may be divided 
into grammar and song schools. The latter, designed 
primarily to train choristers and assistants In the 
church services, gradually assumed in the great as 
well as in some of the small churches the character 
of elementary schools, teaching reading and writing 
and other subjects fundamental to the work of the 
grammar school. 

The faint beginnings of the secularization of the 
schools may be found In the formation in larger 
centers of population of annexes to the church or 
monastic schools, which were maintained more or less 
by the city and are known as the burg or city gram- 
mar schools. 

As a result of the development of commerce and 
industry the wealthy citizen or burgher class rose to 
a position of power and influence side by side with 
the nobility and the clergy. The busy life of the 
medieval centers of commerce and Industry gave rise 
to educational needs of a more immediate and prac- 
tical character than those met by the traditional 
course of study of the grammar schools. The sys- 
tematization of the efforts made to satisfy these needs 



170 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

brought into existence a number of schools which 
have been imperfectly classified as writing, reckoning, 
and folk-schools. 

The grammar school may be said to survive in 
part in the high school of to-day. The common pub- 
lic school of to-day, inasmuch as it prepares for the 
high school, may be considered as the descendant of 
the medieval elementary or song school ; inasmuch as 
it meets the more essential of the educational needs 
of the mass of people, it is the modern representative 
of the reading, writing, reckoning, and other folk- 
schools which originated in the Middle Ages. 

The conditions of the early medieval period being 
unfavorable to creative work in literature or science, 
the traditional course in the seven liberal arts was 
the more closely adhered to and school procedure 
became to a high degree formal. Yet among the 
teachers of this long period were many able and even 
brilliant men, and in the work of the best schools the 
principles of the inductive method, of apperception, 
and of correlation seem to have been more frequently 
observed than is generally believed. 



CHAPTER X 

THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES 
AND THE RELATED INTEL- 
LECTUAL MOVEMENTS 

Looked at In the large, progress In the arts of 
civilization is seen to have been continuous from the 
close of the period of the Crusades to the present. 
This continuity has not, however, been that of a 
steadily advancing stream, but that of an incoming 
tide, each successive and apparently triumphant wave 
gradually coming to a standstill and even receding, 
yet each, after all, contributing Its quota to the rising 
flood. 

The causes already noted (see pp. 157-159) 
which contributed so much In the twelfth century 
to the development of skilled craftsmanship and com- 
mercial enterprise and to the appreciation of refine- 
ment of manners, literature, and the fine arts among 
the upper and the new middle class, had a no less 
marked Influence upon the Intellectual life of the 
time. This manifested Itself especially In the In- 
creased attention to the study of medicine, law, and 
theology. 

The Study of Medicine. — During the eleventh 
century the medical scholars at Salerno became noted 
for their more thorough knowledge of the writings 

171 



172 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

of Galen, Hippocrates, and other ancient authorities 
on medicine. For more than two centuries Salerno 
was as famous a center for the study of medicine as 
was Bologna for the study of law. Inasmuch, how- 
ever, as the school in the former did not develop 
a university organization and exercised httle direct 
influence upon the form of subsequent professional 
schools no attempt will be made to set forth the little 
that is known of its character and organization. 

The Study of L^w.— The rapid growth of com- 
merce and the Increasing complexity of society cre- 
ated a need for a more thorough and comprehensive 
knowledge of law just at a time when the disputes of 
certain Italian cities with the Emperor were leading 
the former to a more painstaking study of the great 
system of laws created by the genius of the ancient 
Romans and codified under Justinian. 



THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY. THE SCHOLASTIC MOVEMENT 

But a subject of wider and more Intense Interest 
was that of theology. Already throughout two or 
three centuries certain great thinkers, such as Scotus 
Erigena, Lanfranc, and Anselm, had been engaged 
in a more or less complete rationalization of the doc- 
trines of the Western Church. Contact during the 
period of the Crusades with the conflicting doctrines 
of the Mohammedans and with those of the various 
Christian sects In the East greatly stimulated this 
activity. But, aside from these incentives. Increasing 
political stability and private wealth were affording 



THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES 1 73 

security and leisure for reflection, and it was but nat- 
ural that the ever active human intellect thus eman- 
cipated should wreak itself upon the subject in which 
the learning of the time culminated. 

The doctrines of the Christian Church had not 
yet been systematized. Their acceptance had rested 
hitherto solely upon the unquestioning faith of the 
believer in the divine authority of the Church. The 
intellectual awakening of the period rendering this 
foundation less satisfactory, the leading thinkers of 
the time sought to ground the doctrines of the Chris- 
tian religion firmly in the reason. Naturally the first 
to realize this need and to take an active part in grat- 
ifying it were the ' scholastics,' the teachers, hence 
the name ' scholasticism,' by which the movement Is 
still known. 

As these became more and more engrossed In the 
work of demonstrating to the reason the truth of the 
doctrines of Christianity and in the formulation of 
these and their arrangement into a logical and con- 
sistent whole, they were more and more impelled 
to apply the work of the Greek philosophers, espe- 
cially Plato and Aristotle. Let us note a typical in- 
stance of this. In Porphyry's ' Isagoge,' an Intro- 
duction to Aristotle's philosophy in every medieval 
student's hands, the doctrine of Ideas over which 
Plato and Aristotle differed (see p. 23) is touched 
upon as follows: " Next, concerning genera and spe- 
cies, the question, indeed, whether they have sub- 
stantial existence, or whether they consist in bare 
iiitellectual concepts only, or whether, if they have 



174 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

substantial existence, they are corporeal or incor- 
poreal, and whether they are separable from the sen- 
sible properties of things (or particulars of sense), 
or are only in those properties and subsisting about 
them, I shall forbear to determine. For a question 
of this kind is a very deep one and one that requires 
a longer investigation." The urgency of the great 
task the scholastics had undertaken forced them, 
however, to take sides on the question. 

Those maintaining that genera or species have 
substantial existence were Realists. The Nominalists 
held that only the individual possessed true reality. 
Applying their views, for example, to the doctrine 
of the Trinity, the Realists maintained that God was 
a subsistent reality, the Nominalists, that the term 
represented only a generalization in thought from the 
three divine persons. 

The Origin of the Universities.— Tht demand for 
instruction resulting from this great access of interest 
in the subjects of theology and law resulted ulti- 
mately in bringing into existence a distinct and higher 
class of institutions of learning, later called univer- 
sities. That the causes working to this end were not 
merely local but general is evidenced by the fact that 
this new institution assumed definite form in the same 
century (the twelfth) in centers of population so 
widely separated as Paris and Bologna. Between 
the two great prototypes of the modern university 
originating thus simultaneously north and south of 
the Alps there were, however, striking differences. 
While the dominant interest in Paris was, at first, 



THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES 1 75 

theology, in Bologna it was law. In Paris the uni- 
versity was an outcome of the scholastic movement, 
which had its chief center among the clergy in and 
about the cathedral school of Notre Dame. In Bo- 
logna, on the other hand, the movement originated 
among laymen connected with a school of the liberal 
arts, which was a survival of the old Roman schools 
of grammar and rhetoric. (See p. 89.) A school 
which, like the above, attracted students from a dis- 
tance was known at first as a ' studium generale ' to 
distinguish it from a local school, a ' studium par- 
ticulare.' 

Organization. — ^The foreigners in attendance at 
these ' studia generalia ' did what the people of the 
Middle Ages in such circumstances had always been 
accustomed to do. They formed voluntary associa- 
tions (guilds, corporations, ' universitates ') for the 
purpose of protection and of the regulation of con- 
duct; for the foreigner in those times, and particu- 
larly in the Italian cities, was little better than an 
outlaw. 

It was only foreigners who needed the protection 
of these guilds or universities, hence at Bologna, 
where the teachers were native, both they and the 
Bolognese students were excluded. The number of 
these guilds or universities at Bologna varied, but 
about the middle of the thirteenth century they were 
reduced to two, the Cismontane and the Ultramon- 
tane. Within these larger corporations or universi- 
ties were smaller groups composed of those from 
the same country ; these were known as * nations.' 



176 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Whether they or the universities were the organi- 
zations fiirst formed is unknown. 

As a result of attempts on the part of the Bolo- 
gnese professors and citizens toward selfish aggran- 
dizement, the students, many of whom were of ma- 
ture age and were incumbents of important offices in 
church and state, rebelled. In the contest, the stu- 
dents, who by simply boycotting could deprive the 
Bolognese teachers and citizens of a great source of 
income, acquired external control of the law school. 
This they exercised through their elected head, the 
Rector, who could cite professors before him to an- 
swer for delinquencies. 

At Paris, on the other hand, it was the guild or 
university of the teachers, and particularly of the 
Masters of Arts, which acquired control of the stu- 
dium generale as a whole. 

In both Paris and Bologna the teachers, follow- 
ing the medieval custom among those engaged in the 
same occupation, organized themselves into ' colle- 
gia ' or guilds, the purpose of which, like that of all 
craft and professional guilds, was the maintenance oft 
a standard of professional efficiency and the conserva- 
tion of professional interests. The former end they 
accomplished through the conduct of examinations 
and the granting of degrees. 

Degrees. — Following the custom of the craft 
guilds the scholar became a Master or Doctor only 
by demonstrating his fitness before and receiving the 
recognition of those who were already Masters or 
Doctors. The Doctors at Bologna being accused 



THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES 1 77 

of having bestowed some degrees unworthily, Pope 
Honorius III decreed in 12 19 that no promotion to 
the doctorate should thereafter take place without 
the consent of the Archdeacon of Bologna. The lat- 
ter's participation in the granting of degrees seems 
to have been, however, purely formal. At Paris, the 
Scholasticus or Chancellor of the cathedral school 
vigorously resisted the guild or university of Masters 
in any infringements of his exclusive right to grant 
licenses to teach. (See p. 140.) In this contest 
the university was supported by the Pope, and by the 
simple expedient of boycotting such of the Chan- 
cellor's licentiates as they wished, they retained con- 
trol of the granting of degrees. 

The course of study leading to the master's or 
doctor's degree gradually divided into two definite 
parts, the first in which the student devoted all his 
time to study, and a second, in which he both studied 
and assisted his master in teaching. Such an assist- 
ant was known as a ' bachelor,' a term common in 
the terminology of the guilds and of chivalry (see 
Chaucer, Prol. v. 80). In the thirteenth century 
the custom arose, possibly in a sportive fashion 
among the students themselves, of marking a pupil's 
entrance upon the bachelor stage with an exercise 
known as ' determinations,' in which the latter, after 
the fashion of a candidate qualifying for the degree 
of Master, maintained a thesis against one or more 
opponents. Later * to determine ' was made obli- 
gatory upon all taking the regular course. When 
still later examinations upon the books already read 



178 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

were added, the Baccalaureate became a definite uni- 
versity degree. 

The Faculties. — ^The higher professional schools 
of theology and law in Paris and Bologna respect- 
ively had developed about schools of the liberal 
arts. To these, schools of the remaining learned 
professions were added. From the separate organ- 
ization of the teachers in each of these arose the fac- 
ulties of art, theology, law, and medicine. 

Changes in Relative Rank of Degrees and of 
Schools. — In both cities the courses in arts were at- 
tended by the younger students, and were considered 
as a preparation for the higher professional training. 
At first the titles Master, Doctor, and Professor 
were synonymous. In the fifteenth century, espe- 
cially in England, custom restricted the title Doctor 
to the graduates of the professional schools, while 
the graduates in arts were known as Masters. In 
Germany the arts course was raised to the rank of 
the others by the addition to it of the subject of 
philosophy, hitherto a part of the theological course. 
Thus was formed the faculty of philosophy and 
hence the title Doctor of Philosophy. 

As the faculties of theology at the university 
developed, the cathedral schools gradually lost their 
character as theological seminaries and sank to the 
position of secondary schools. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE RENAISSANCE 

The Middle Age went to such extremes in its ab- 
solute reliance upon authority and divine revelation, 
and in its preoccupation with the fate of the soul in 
the life to come, that it brought about a vigorous 
reaction in favor of individual freedom and of the 
cultivation of those natural human interests and ca- 
pacities which had been so long neglected. Among 
the various similar movements that have occurred in 
the history of civilization, this of the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries stands marked as the Renaissance. 
The growth of commerce and industry, with the 
consequent increase of wealth and leisure, and the 
political stability resulting from the rise of the great 
modern European states, had long been laying the 
foundations for a new fashion of intellectual and 
emotional life. 

The reason, hitherto submissive to religious 
authority and busied in rationalizing, elaborating, 
and systematizing its doctrines, now began to re- 
nounce its allegiance, and to attempt independently 
the solution of the great problems of life. More 
striking at first than this emancipation of the reason 
was that of natural and wholesome desires and im- 
pulses, hitherto unduly repressed under the doml- 

179 , 



l8o HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

nance of monastic ideals of life. Whereas the pre- 
ceding age had concentrated its attention upon man's 
frailties and defects, he came now to be regarded with 
that delight and admiration which later found ex- 
pression in Shakespeare's famous apostrophe: — 
" What a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! 
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how 
express and admirable ! in action how like an angel 1 
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the 
world! the paragon of animals!" Similarly this 
world, hitherto regarded mainly as a vale of tears, 
or as merely a place of sojourn, was now seen to be 
replete with objects of interest and beauty. Of Bat- 
tista Alberta, one of the representative men of this 
time, his biographer relates : " At the sight of noble 
trees and waving cornfields he shed tears; handsome 
and dignified old men he honored as a delight of na- 
ture, and could never look at them enough. Per- 
fectly formed animals won his good-will as being 
specially favored by nature; and more than once 
when he was ill the sight of a beautiful landscape 
cured him." Finally, human life In this world came 
to have a new and intense significance. It was rec- 
ognized now as not merely a period of probation, or 
as merely an Introduction to the life to come, but as 
consisting of experiences of value for their own sake. 
The radically changed view of and attitude toward 
life created a hunger for a new culture in which these 
newly awakened secular Interests might find gratifi- 
cation. This was found not only in the literature 
but in the philosophy, the art, and architecture of the 



THE RENAISSANCE l8l 

great Graeco-Roman civilization, which for nearly a 
thousand years had suffered an eclipse under the dom- 
inating religious interests of the Middle Ages. The 
onset of the Renaissance, like that of all great move- 
ments, was gradual. Dante, thoroughly medieval, 
as the matter of his great poem shows him to be, in 
his outlook on life, was yet a herald of the new age 
in his enthusiastic admiration of the great Latin 
classics. " Art thou then," he cries rapturously to 
his guide, " that Virgil, and that fountain which 
pours abroad so rich a stream of speech? O glory 
and light of other poets! May the long zeal 
avail me, and the great love which made me search 
thy volume. Thou art my master and my author. 
Thou alone art he from whom I took the good style 
that hath done me honor." But the first to view life 
in its entirety from the Renaissance point of view was 
Petrarch. Even as a child he found delight in the 
rolling periods of Cicero's orations. As he grew up 
his enthusiasm and the charm and the force of his per- 
sonality enabled him to lead many others to that vivid 
and sympathetic appreciation which he himself felt 
of the higher life of the Romans as recorded in their 
literature, their art, and their historical monuments. 

What Petrarch and the other leaders of the move- 
ment aimed at was not merely the study of Graeco- 
Roman culture, but the actual revival of the literary, 
artistic, and intellectual life of civilized Rome, so 
Inauspiciously interrupted by the decline of the em- 
pire and by the consequent invasion of * Gothic bar- 
barism.' Early indications of interest in individual 



1 82 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

human beings and In human experience are to be 
found in the tales of Petrarch's friend and kindred 
spirit, Boccaccio, and in the matchless portraitures 
of Chaucer's * Prologue.' But this realization of 
the worth of human personality, this intense interest 
in human experience, this sense of the beauty of the 
human form, and of the intrinsic greatness of the 
human soul, found fullest expression in the arts of 
painting and sculpture. The crude, lifeless pictures 
of scriptural characters and events which for cen- 
turies had been placed upon the walls or over the 
altars of the churches to instruct worshipers, and in- 
spire them in their devotions, became radiant and 
significant with the beauty, the intelligence, the feel- 
ing still preserved for us in such masterpieces as the 
Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci or the Madonnas 
of Raphael. Art from being merely an aid to devo- 
tion became an interpreter of the beauty of the sur- 
rounding world. 

The great Renaissance movement began naturally 
among the Italians. Not only had they profited 
most in the commercial and industrial activity result- 
ing from the Crusades, but to them alone did the 
Renaissance possess the character of a revival of na- 
tional traditions. Moreover, the progress of the 
movement was favored by the existence among them 
of numerous small independent republics or despo- 
tisms similar to those which played so important a 
part in the development of ancient Greek culture. 

Humanism. — An important result of the Renais- 
sance movement was the establishment of a new edu- 



THE RENAISSANCE 1 83 

catlonal ideal. The qualities which the men of the 
Renaissance deemed most distinctively human and o£ 
highest worth, such as elegance and refinement of lan- 
guage and of manners, mental cultivation, liberal as 
distinguished from professional education, are all 
connoted in the term ' humanitas,' as used by Cicero. 
Hence ' humanitas ' or ^ humanity ' came to desig- 
nate the new educational ideal of the Renaissance. 
Later the word, humanity or humanities, came to 
mean not so much this peculiar quality of character 
as the studies believed to be peculiarly effective in 
cultivating It, namely, Latin and Greek language and 
literature. The educational doctrine which exalts 
this Ideal or the Importance of these subjects Is 
knovm as Humanism. 

INFLUENCE OF THE RENAISSANCE UPON SCHOOL-WORK 

The cultivation of the esthetic interests which 
characterize the Renaissance was possible only to 
the few, to the aristocracy of wealth or intellect. 
Among this class the movement resulted In a pro- 
found change In the school education of the young. 
The prevailing enthusiasm for the classical literatures 
gave these the first place in the course of study. The 
new feeling for the beauties of literary style, the 
political and social conditions of the times, com- 
bined with the teachings of the great Roman writer 
on education, Quintilian, to make eloquence one of 
the great ends of school-work. The revived appre- 
ciation of the dignity and worth of man, the new- 
found joy In life and In nature, resulted in greater 



184 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

attention to physical training and deportment and to 
the study of history and the natural sciences. Of 
the schools established for the attainment of these 
ends in the different great households in Italy the 
most famous and the most successful was that under 
the direction of Vittorino da Feltre, connected with 
the court of the Gonzagas at Mantua. In a beau- 
tiful establishment specially planned and constructed 
for this purpose Vittorino set out to train the chil- 
dren of the court and others to share in and con- 
tribute to the life of this brilliant period of the 
Renaissance. The work centered about the Latin 
classics. These were taught not in the dry, formal 
manner hitherto prevalent in the schools, but with 
the insight and the contagious enthusiasm charac- 
teristic of the Renaissance. There was abundant 
practice in Latin and Greek composition. Train- 
ing was afforded in music and declamation, mathe- 
matics, and the natural sciences. There was much 
physical exercise in the form of riding, swimming, 
fencing, and military evolutions. Manners and so- 
cial accomplishments were carefully cultivated. 

THE SPREAD OF THE RENAISSANCE MOVEMENT 

Through the great Church councils which brought 
together from all lands the clergy, the most learned 
class, as well as by other means, the movement 
spread slowly throughout Western Europe. One 
of the first in Germany to be affected by it was Nich- 
olas of Cusa, who was intimately associated with 
the Brethren of the Common Life, an organization 



THE RENAISSANCE 185 

which played an important part in the history of ele- 
mentary school education. Other pioneers of human- 
ism in Germany were Rudolph Agricola, who fur- 
thered the movement more through the influence of 
his unique personality than through his activity as 
a teacher or writer; Reuchlin, who advocated the 
study not only of Latin and Greek but of Hebrew. 
Greatest of all among the scholars of Northern Eu- 
rope was the genial Erasmus, eminent no less for 
his vast erudition than for his practical wisdom., 
Melanchthon, a kinsman of Reuchlin, was among the 
first of the German university students to turn to 
the Renaissance studies. His writings reveal the 
attitude of the leading thinkers toward the old and 
the new learning, as, for instance, in the following 
passage: "At the university nothing was placed be- 
fore us but their babbling dialectics and meager 
physics. As I, however, had learned the art of ver- 
sifying, I applied myself to the poets and likewise to 
history and mythology. I read, too, all the mod- 
erns of Politian's school whom I could lay my hands 
on, and this was not without its influence upon my 
style." This enthusiasm for literature and the fine 
arts was, however, a characteristic of the Renais- 
sance scholars of Italy rather than of Germany. 
The latter were distinguished by the fact that they 
employed their knowledge of the new learning, as did 
Erasmus, mainly in the promotion of social and re- 
ligious reforms. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE REFORMATION 

The recognition of the worth and dignity of the 
individual man which characterizes the Renaissance 
movement found expression in Northern Europe 
in a great rehgious movement, the Reformation. 
Though at first the two movements seemed to be 
parallel, it soon became evident that they were 
divergent. 

The irritation and impatience which the Germans 
had long experienced under the dominance of the 
Italian heads of the Church found expression in the 
religious revolution headed by Martin Luther. The 
latter repudiated the doctrine of the mediatory pow- 
ers of the Church or the priesthood. Salvation was 
conditioned upon the direct personal faith of the 
individual in God. 

It was not only in this assertion of the importance 
and independence of the individual that the spirit of 
the Reformation harmonized with that of the Renais- 
sance. They were alike in their higher estimation 
of the affairs of this life. Fuller recognition was paid 
by both to the worth of secular pursuits and to the 
dignity of the married state. Both were bitterly hos- 
tile to the scholastic philosophy and theology. The 
reasons for this hostility, it is important to notice, 

i86 



THE REFORMATION 1 87 

were, however, quite different in the two cases. While 
the humanists were opposed to the scholastics on 
account of their abject submission to authority, their 
blindness to the worth and the beauty of human na- 
ture and human life, and the narrowness and futility 
of their intellectual activities, Luther and his disciples 
were hostile to them on account of the reverence they 
paid to the heathen Aristotle, and because of their 
attempts to harmonize faith and reason. Faith, the 
only means of salvation, was in Luther's opinion en- 
tirely independent of reason. The Roman Church, 
he charged, had secularized religion. It had sub- 
stituted a rationalistic culture religion for the prim- 
itive Christian religion of sin and redemption. 

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE 
REFORMATION IN NORTHERN EUROPE 

In Germany and Northern Europe the Renais- 
sance naturally made its way from the higher insti- 
tutions dowmvard. Its progress was manifest in the 
appointment of ' poets ' and * orators ' to positions 
in university faculties, in the substitution of classical 
for medieval Latin, and in the establishment of 
Greek professorships. These changes did not take 
place, however, without a bitter contest with the ad- 
herents of the older scholastic learning. It was in 
this struggle that the latter were held up to ridi- 
cule in the famous ' Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum.' 
The new learning exerted an influence even in the 
secondary schools. Here again medieval Latin gave 
way to classical, the ' Doctrinale ' of Alexander was 



1 88 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION ' 

replaced by briefer and clearer text-books, the read- 11 
ing of classical authors was prescribed, and their 
works were used as models in poetical and prose 
composition. 

But scarcely had these reforms been inaugurated 
in Germany when the outbreak of the Reformation 
threw school-work into confusion, for so intimately 
were the schools bound up with the Church that they 
shared in her downfall. The attention of the peo- 
ple was withdrawn from literary and esthetic pur- 
suits to the great religious questions of the time. 
Following upon this period of religious excitement 
came the devastating Peasants' War. The attend- 
ance at the universities in Germany was reduced to 
one-fourth of what it formerly had been. For a 
time it seemed as If Erasmus's statement that 
" Where Lutheranism prevails the sciences and arts 
decline," was fully verified. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION UPON THE 
SCHOOLS 

The movement for religious freedom and uncon- 
ventionallty headed by Luther naturally tended to 
run to extremes In various directions. By some re- 
ligious enthusiasts Luther's emphasis upon faith as 
the sole means of salvation, and his assertion of Its 
independence of reason, was exaggerated into abso- 
lute Indifference or even Into hostility toward learn- 
ing. This movement was vigorously combated by 
Luther himself. He saw clearly that if the Scrip- 
tures are to be the sole guide in faith and doctrine a 



THE REFORMATION 1 89 

knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the lan- 
guages in which they have been transmitted, must 
ever be of first importance in the education at least 
of religious leaders. In his famous ' Letter to the 
Mayors and Councillors of all Cities in German 
Lands,' he writes: " For just as God would, through 
the apostles, send the Gospel into all lands, so He 
provided the tongues for this purpose. And had 
also previously through the Roman rule extended the 
Greek and Latin languages so widely throughout all 
lands in order that the Gospel might soon bear fruit 
far and wide. He has done so also now. No one 
has known why God has allowed the languages to 
come down to us until now we see for the first time 
that it is on account of the Gospel which He would 
afterwards reveal and through this expose and de- 
stroy the rule of Anti-Christ." 

It was not only religious but political and other 
considerations that led Luther in the same letter to 
advocate school education for the rank and file of the 
people. " This is the best and richest increase, pros- 
perity, and strength of a city," he continues further 
on, '' that It should have many refined, learned, intel- 
ligent, honorable, well-bred citizens." Later in his 
* Sermon that People should keep their Children at 
School,' he urges upon the authorities the duty of 
keeping talented youths at school, if necessary under 
compulsion and at public expense, in order to have 
men fit for holding public offices. 

The Importance of the Reformation in the history 
^ of school education Is due chiefly, however, to the 



190 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

influence of Luther's great friend and coadjutor, 
Philip Melanchthon. The grand-nephew of the hu- 
manist Reuchlin, and himself one of the greatest 
Renaissance scholars and teachers of his time, he 
struggled persistently and effectively to bring about 
a unification of the new evangelical doctrines with 
humanistic culture. A colleague of Luther's on the 
faculty of the University of Wittenberg, he worked 
to the attainment of this end not only as one of the 
most inspiring and widely influential teachers of his 
time, not only as the writer of the best text-books 
in a great variety of subjects, but as the man who 
through immediate personal activity or through writ- 
ten consultation either framed himself or assisted in 
the framing of nearly all the German Protestant uni- 
versity and school systems of his time. At his death 
thousands of his students were active in the univer- 
sities and other schools throughout Germany. Two 
of them, Trotzendorf and Neander, attained espe- 
cial eminence as educators. Not without reason was 
Melanchthon entitled the ' Praeceptor Germaniae.' 

But this educational revival affected for the most 
part only the secondary Latin schools and the univer- 
sities, and here it was seriously hindered by the nar- 
row and dogmatic spirit engendered by the fierce the- 
ological controversies of the times. These not only 
made theology once again the central subject in the 
higher institutions of learning, but gave to the work 
of the lower schools a marked religious or rather 
theological character. In the lower schools also re- 
ligion became the chief subject of the course of study, 



THE REFORMATION 19I 

and the catechism the most important of school texts. 
Throughout Protestant Germany the pastor or the 
sexton was on Sunday afternoons to explain to the 
congregation and to the younger people the princi- 
pal passages of the Catechism. In 1530 Melanch- 
thon refers to this as a peculiarly Protestant institu- 
tion everywhere cherished. The parents were ex- 
pected to drill their children upon these lessons dur- 
ing the week. Since they were either unwilling or 
unable to do this the duty fell upon the shoulders of 
the sexton, who one day during the week gave in- 
struction in the Catechism and in church music. 

Notwithstanding Luther's exhortations, there was 
little or no extension of secular school education 
among the poorer classes. Various sorts of folk- 
schools existed in the cities, but they were private 
enterprises. Some beginnings toward the establish- 
ment of city and state systems of elementary schools 
are, however, to be noted. In the school ordinance 
for Brunsv/ick, in 1528, for example, besides the 
Latin school, two German boys' schools were pro- 
vided which were to teach the Catechism, good dis- 
cipline and manners, writing and calculation. Read- 
ing is presupposed. 

The establishment of state systems of folk-schools 
for both city and country was a more difficult prob- 
lem. The first steps in this direction were taken in 
Wiirtemberg. In 1559 Duke Christopher decreed 
that German schools supported by the congregation 
should be established in all parishes where there were 
sextons. The sexton-teachers were to be examined 



192 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

and approved by the church consistory as to their 
orthodoxy and their learning. The supervision of 
the schools was handed over to the pastor. A sim- 
ilar decree was made in Saxony in 1580. Tuition 
fees were the teacher's only source of income, and 
the positions were precarious, hence they fell largely 
into the hands of half-vagabond wandering students 
or ignorant workmen. Little attention was paid to the 
housing and equipment of the schools. The school- 
room was often at the same time a living-room and a 
workshop. Schools for girls as well as for boys 
were erected in some of the larger cities such as 
Brunswick, Leipzig, Strassburg. The times were, 
however, unfavorable to the development of these 
few and scattered germs of universal education. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE CLASSICAL SCHOOLS OF THE 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

Sturm^s School at Strasshiirg. — But if the hu- 
manistic movement had little influence upon elemen- 
tary school-work, It ultimately wrought great and 
lasting modifications of secondary school education. 
In the Protestant school under Sturm at Strassburg 
and in the schools of the Jesuits the humanistic sec- 
ondary school assumed a definite and permanent 
form, which survives in the classical grammar school 
of to-day. 

John Sturm, after a preparatory education with 
the children of his father's patron. Count Man- 
derscheld, attended a school at Liittich under the 
control of the Brethren of the Common Life. Both 
the organization and curriculum of this school served 
Sturm as models in his subsequent work as organizer 
and director of schools. It consisted of eight care- 
fully graded classes. The like proficiency of the 
members of each class was maintained by strict half- 
yearly examinations. The course of study was hu- 
manistic. The medieval ^ Doctrlnale ' of Alexan- 
der de Villa Dei (see p. 105) was replaced by a 
course in grammar so concise as to facilitate the early 

193 



194 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

reading of the Latin texts themselves. Only the 
classical Latin authors were read. 

After completing his course at the university of 
Louvain and devoting some time to studying and 
teaching at the university of Paris, Sturm undertook 
to complete the reorganization of the work of the 
Strassburg schools, so as to bring it into harmony 
with prevailing humanistic ideals. So successfully 
did he carry out this undertaking that the school 
became perhaps the most famous of its time. This 
success seems to have been due largely to the fact 
that Sturm was guided in his school-work by a clearly 
defined aim, which, though narrow, was yet well 
suited to the tastes and needs of his time. This aim 
was the cultivation of knowledge, piety, and elo- 
quence. The eloquence desired was that in the Latin 
tongue, the knowledge to be imparted was mainly 
such as would aid in the appreciation and use of 
Latin. The work of the ten classes into which the 
school was divided was carefully graduated. 

Though the course comprehended nearly all the 
subjects of the traditional trivium and quadrivium 
as well as the Reformation studies of the Catechism 
and the Bible, yet every subject was made contrib- 
utory so far as possible to the great central aim of 
developing in the pupil the ability to speak and write 
Latin in an elegant Ciceronian fashion. The careful 
attention paid by Sturm, Ascham, the early Jesuits, 
and other educators of this period to methods of 
teaching Latin translation and composition resulted 
in a teaching efficiency in these subjects which 



SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 195 

compares favorably with that of our best modern 
schools. 

THE COUNTER-REFORMATION 

The Schools of the Jesuits, — In the struggles of 
the Reformation period there arose within the Ro- 
man Church a new order, the Order of Jesus, which 
for several centuries was to play a leading part in the 
school-work of Western Europe. 

In several respects the Jesuit stood in sharp con- 
trast to the older monastic orders. While the lat- 
ter were more or less democratic, the former was 
monarchical and autocratic in organization. Founded 
by a soldier and a zealot, the Spaniard Ignatius 
Loyola, its discipline was more than military in its 
rigor. Absolute, unquestioning obedience to those 
in command was demanded of each member. While 
the older monastic orders afforded a place of retreat 
from the world, the Jesuits were active In the very 
centers of social and political activity. 

In their struggles to advance the interests of the 
Roman Church they had recourse to the confessional, 
to preaching, and to school-work. 

To the older monastic orders the school was an In- 
stitution of secondary importance. To the Jesuits 
it was one of the chief means of accomplishing their 
ends, namely, the extension of the Catholic faith and 
of the influence of their own Order. Not interested 
in school education merely for its own sake, they set 
up no new standards of liberal education, but simply 
adopted those of the prevalent humanistic move- 



196 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ment. But the zeal, the singleness and fixity of pur- 
pose, the efficiency of organization which distinguish 
the Order enabled It to evolve systems of Instruction 
and of school management which for centuries placed 
Its schools In the front rank among those of Western 
Europe. 

The difficulties encountered in the prosecution of 
school-work awakened a desire for a summary of the 
most valuable results of the experience of teachers. 
Just as the similar need of modern teachers has been 
met by such works as the ' Report of the Committee of 
Ten,' so that of the Jesuit teachers led to the formu- 
lation in 1586 of the ' Ratio Studlorum,' the result 
of the labors of a committee of six. Slightly mod- 
ified and rearranged in 1599, the ' Ratio Studlorum * 
continued to prescribe Jesuit school organization and 
procedure down to the nineteenth century. Indeed, 
it did not undergo any fundamental changes even 
then. 

The schools of the Jesuits, none of which are 
lower than the secondary, are of three ranks — the 
grammar school, the higher school of philosophy, 
and the school of theology, in which the course 
culminates. The ' Ratio ' prescribes rules for the 
school officials and teachers in order of rank. 

As in Sturm's school, the work in the grammar 
school centered about the cultivation of a mastery of 
Latin style. The first four grades, known as the 
lower, middle, and higher grammar, and humanity, 
respectively, required one year each; the final grade, 
known as rhetoric, required two years. 



I 



SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 197 

The grammar course was followed by a three 
years' course In the philosophical school, in which 
mathematics, logic, metaphysics, ethics, and physics 
were studied. This course completed, from four to 
six years were devoted to teaching in the lower 
classes. In order to minimize the harm resulting 
from the work of inexperienced teachers, the * Ratio ' 
prescribed that " in order that the young teachers of 
the lower classes may not enter upon their duties 
without practical preparation, the Rector shall select 
an experienced teacher, and those who are about to 
take up teaching will spend with him three hours a 
week in order that through lecturing, dictating, writ- 
ing, and the other duties of a capable teacher they 
may be trained for their new calling.'* At the close 
of this period the student enters upon a five-year 
course in the theological school, where he studies 
Hebrew church history, canon law, apologetics, and 
casuistics. 

Classes were subdivided into groups of ten, each 
in charge of a student known as a decurion. While 
the latter heard the recitations on the work of the 
preceding day, the teacher corrected the written ex- 
ercises. School-work was made as tolerable as pos- 
sible for the pupils. The tasks were light and the 
daily program, never longer than five hours, was re- 
lieved by intermissions. The vacations were rela- 
tively long. 

Both the spirit of the humanistic movement and 
the ultimate purpose of Jesuit school-work favored 
the adoption of mild and agreeable methods of dis- 



19^ HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

cipllne. The motives of rivalry and of personal 
ambition already generally utilized in humanistic 
schools were employed to a greater extent than ever 
before. Each pupil had his particular * adversa- 
rius.' The failure of either to correct any error of 
the other was counted as a demerit. The scholastic 
disputations were continued and elaborated in the 
frequent contests between classes or sections of 
classes to determine which could display the widest 
and most accurate knowledge of a given subject. 
Offices of dignity, prizes, membership in select acad- 
emies of students, all awarded with eclat, stimulated 
pupils to effort. Corporal punishment was inflicted 
only as a last resort and never by a member of the 
Order. In the system as a whole good and evil are 
strangely interwoven. On the one hand there are the 
definlteness of aim, the adaptation of means to end, 
the Intelligently elaborated method, the concentra- 
tion of effort, the neatness and order in their estab- 
lishments, the mildness of their discipline. On the 
other hand there are the encouragement of the spirit 
of emulation and of spying among the students, the 
ceremoniousness and display, and over all a spirit 
foreign to the true aim of education. 



CHAPTER XIV 

EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION UPON 
THE SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND 

In England, as elsewhere, the great majority of 
the schools were, up to the sixteenth century, con- 
nected with the Church as cathedral, collegiate 
church, monastic, chantry, hospital, guild, or other 
schools. The multiplication of these endowments 
for the maintenance of religious services and of 
schools had led to many abuses and to a great deal 
of corruption. The people of a present generation 
could have little interest In the indefinite continuance 
of masses for the soul of an unknown person two cen- 
turies dead, hence there naturally arose abundant 
cause for such complaints as that contained in the 
preamble to the Chantries Act of Henry VIII, 
namely, that " many of the . . . patrons, or such as 
pretend to be, . . . have expulsed the priests ... 
and do occupy the masters' houses, and do convert the 
rents to their own uses." On this account an act was 
passed which enabled the king to appropriate reli- 
gious endowments of this sort to defray the expenses 
of his wars against France and Scotland. Henry 
VIII, himself a believer In purgatory, did not bring 
about any sweeping confiscation of these Institutions. 

I Soon after the accession of his son, Edward VI, an- 

I 199 



200 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Other act was passed for the suppression of chantries, 
hospitals, guilds, and other like endowments, this 
time, however, not for economic but for religious 
reasons. The act recites that " A great part of the 
superstition and errors in Christian religion has been 
brought into the minds and estimation of men, by 
reason of their ignorance of the very true and perfect 
salvation through Christ Jesus, and by devising and 
fancying vain opinions of purgatory and masses satis- 
factory to be done for them which be departed, the 
which doctrine and vain opinion by nothing more is 
maintained and upholden than by the abuse of 
treatals, chantries, and other provisions made for the 
continuance of the said blindness and ignorance." 

The end aimed at in these acts was generally com- 
mended. The purpose as stated in the act itself was 
to apply chantry and similar endowments " to good 
and godly uses, as in the erecting of grammar schools 
to the education of youths in virtue and godliness, the 
further augmenting of the universities, and better 
provision of the poor and needy." The effect of the 
act upon school education in England was, however, 
deplorable. The secularization of such vast arr\ounts 
of property, particularly in a period when, owing to 
the youth of the king, the government was in the 
hands of a regency, afforded abundant opportunities 
for corruption. A large portion of the wealth, instead 
of being applied to the support of schools, was ap- 
propriated by private individuals. The Master of 
St. John's, Cambridge, in a sermon before Edward 
yi said, " Now many grammar schools be taken, 



EFFECTS OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 201 

sold, made away to the great slander of you and 
your laws, to the grievous offense of the people, to 
the most miserable drowning of the youth In Igno- 
rance, and sore decay of the universities." Thomas 
Williams, Speaker of the House of Commons, com- 
plained similarly to Queen Elizabeth In 1562 of the 
decay of the schools and stated " that at least one 
hundred were wanting In England which before that 
time had been." 

The property of most of the religious establish- 
ments dissolved by the Chantries Act passed Into the 
hands of the crown. The schools attached to these 
establishments were to be maintained by regular pay- 
ments made by the crown from the Income of the con- 
fiscated property. In this way the chantry, stipendi- 
ary, and guild schools are transformed Into ' gram- 
mar ' schools and usually Into ' Royal Grammar 
Schools ' of Edward VI or of Elizabeth; for, through 
a courtesy cornmon In monarchical states, these pay- 
ments by the crown were considered conventionally 
as gifts. The Injury done to the schools of England 
through the Chantries Act was due not only to the 
greed and dishonesty of those charged with Its execu- 
tion but to the Impoverishment of the schools through 
this substitution of a fixed annual sum for the Income 
from lands and other possessions, the value of which 
subsequently Increased, In some Instances, tenfold. 
The relatively few schools which were allowed to re- 
tain their lands have vastly increased in wealth. The 
lands of the Macclesfield grammar school, for In- 
stance, were restored to it. " The total value of the 



202 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

school endowment was £21 4s. It has not received 
any known increment, but its income is now £1,600 
a year." On the other hand the grammar school at 
Bodwin, for example, was continued with a fixed pay- 
ment from the crown of £5 6s. 8d., a sufficient salary 
for a teacher in the early part of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, but altogether inadequate in later times. It Is 
not then to be wondered at that the report of 1867 
states that the school *' formerly held in St. Thomas' 
Chapel " is no longer in existence. 

THE ENDOWMENT OF SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AFTER THE 
REFORMATION 

Though the Reformation put a stop to the estab- 
lishment of chantries and like institutions with which, 
perhaps, most of the grammar and elementary schools 
had formerly been connected, nevertheless the cause 
of education continued to be furthered through the 
endowment of schools by private benefactors. It 
was probably the number and extent of such bene- 
factions which made it possible for England to dis- 
pense for so long with a state system of public 
schools. The following will afford an Idea of the 
general character of these endowments and will illus- 
trate the dangers to which they were exposed. In 
1637 John Pym granted to six trustees a yearly rent 
of £10 issuing out of certain pasture grounds in the 
Parish of Brill " for the use of the schoolmaster In 
Brill chosen by the trustees to pay him for teaching 
ten children of the poor inhabitants of Brill. In 
1705 ... .It was found that there was issuing out of 



EFFECTS OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 203 

the lands of Richard Greenwill In the Parish of Boar- 
stall a yearly rent charge of £10 to the schoolmaster 
aforesaid and that thirty-four and one-half years of 
the said annuity was at that time in arrear; and it 
was decreed . . . that the said Richard Greenwill 
should at a certain day mentioned pay £300, part of 
the arrears of the said annuity . . . to be an augmen- 
tation for the said schoolmaster and his successors; 
for which the said schoolmaster should be obliged to 
teach fifteen poor children of Brill over and above 
the number appointed by the donor of the charity of 
£10 per annum." The report on another school gives 
some interesting data as to the housing and the ad- 
ministration of some of the endowed schools. Wil- 
liam Elmer in 1648 appointed that certain estates be 
conveyed to " John Eyres and five others to erect a 
schoolhouse with three bays of building, with stone and 
tile and lofted throughout, with two chimneys and glass 
doors, and stairs and that the said John Eyres and 
the others should appoint a sufficient man being a 
good scholar and a single man to be schoolmaster 
there and to teach all youth and children as should 
resort to him in the English and Latin tongues, and 
to write and cast accounts . . . and that he should 
take no bribes of his scholars nor their friends, but 
only two pence a scholar to enter them in his book, 
and his will was that the master should have the 
furze to burn in winter-time to warm him and his 
scholars in the schoolhouse." On this endowment the 
Commissioners report in 1833 that, "The school 
land consists of fifty-three acres of pasture, very poor 



204 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

land let at a yearly rent of £48. The schoolhouse 
contains three apartments; the school is in the middle; 
there is a parlor at one end and a kitchen at the 
other, with bedrooms above. The master lives in 
the house and is unmarried. There are nearly eighty 
boys on the books, but not above forty usually at- 
tend in summer and between fifty and sixty in winter; 
they are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, but 
no Latin, for which there is never any demand. The 
master also teaches a few girls as pay scholars, but 
he receives and teaches gratuitously all boys who 
come to him from whatever parish." 



CHAPTER XV 

EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS, RABELAIS, 
MONTAIGNE 

The Renaissance, notwithstanding its limitations 
and notwithstanding the movements, theological, po- 
litical, and otherwise, which hampered and obscured 
it, wrought a change in the status of educational work 
which has never been undone. It re-established 
liberal education. Hitherto school education had 
been regarded as something essentially clerical, 
clerkly. It had consisted mainly in the laborious 
appropriation of the traditional quantum of the seven 
liberal arts. From the time of the Renaissance on, 
hov/ever, men began to look upon it more and more 
as an essential part of that training and instruction 
which will enable a man to get the most out of life, 
which will enable him to perceive, to feel, to think, 
to act so that his life will have the highest possible 
value for himself and hence for others. For this rea- 
son education becomes a subject of prime importance 
from the Renaissance period on, a subject studied and 
discussed by a succession of the most eminent thinkers 
and writers of modern times. The views of these men 
have stimulated and directed the efforts of certain 
great reformers of school education and have thus 
affected the character of the school-work of to-day. 

205 



206 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

An early and striking manifestation in literature 
of this new conception of education is to be found in 
the writings of Rabelais, one of the world's great 
humorists. The twenty or thirty years of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries during which this jovial and 
ebullient genius chafed under the restraints of mo- 
nastic rule were utilized by him in the acquirement of 
a vast erudition. At the same time he acquired a dis- 
like for the monastic life and for the tedious and 
futile drudgery of the monastic schools only equaled 
by the enthusiasm with which he shared in the views 
and aspirations of the early Renaissance. The con- 
trast between the monastic and the Renaissance edu- 
cation is powerfully set forth in a strange jumble of 
riotous fancy, of humor and wisdom entitled ' Gar- 
gantua and Pantagruel.' Gargantua, a giant like his 
parents, Grandgousier and Gargamelle, — all char- 
acters known in the folk-lore of the time, — is subjected 
to the traditional medieval education. " In the first 
place he was taught by a wonderful master of soph- 
ism, Holofernes, who instructed to such purpose that 
he could say his A B C by heart backwards. And for 
this were needed five years and three months; then 
were read Donat,^ le Facet, Theodelet,^ and Alanus 
in Parabolis, for the space of thirteen years, six 
months, and two weeks, . . . then were taught him 
the De Modis Significandi and the commentaries 
i. . . for the space of eighteen years and eleven 
months, and he knew it so well that at his examina- 
tion, he said it by heart backwards. . . . Then he 
* See p. loi. ^ See pp. 107-109. 



EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS 207 

was taught the Compost [computus] for the space of 
sixteen years and two months, when his preceptor 
died." After this fifty-four years of training Gar- 
gantua is found on his return home to be more loutish 
and incapable than ever. 

A description of the course taken by Gargantua 
under a more progressive and up-to-date teacher af- 
fords Rabelais an opportunity of setting forth his 
views on education as it should be. The day's work 
begins about four in the morning. No time is lost. 
Extracts from the Scriptures are read to Gargantua 
while he is bathing. The difficult passages are after- 
wards explained. The appearance of the sky is then 
noted, and compared with that of the preceding 
night. The lessons of the preceding day are reviewed 
while he is dressing. Sometimes this provokes 
lengthy discussions. Without interrupting these, Gar- 
gantua and his tutor take their daily physical exer- 
cise, playing tennis and other games with such ardor 
as to induce profuse perspiration. After a vigorous 
' rub-down ' and a change of clothing they are ready 
for dinner. While waiting extracts from the lessons 
are recited. " At the beginning of the repast some 
pleasant tale of ancient valor is read to them ; then, if 
they please, the reading is continued, or they con- 
verse cheerfully together, talking of the virtues, prop- 
erties, efficacy, and nature of everything on the table. 
So doing they soon learn what the ancient authors 
have taught us in these matters. Then, finishing the 
repast with confections, they wash their faces and 
hands in cold water and give thanks to God for his 



208 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

bounty. Games with cards and dice are then played, 
not merely for amusement but to cultivate skill in 
mathematics. Other mathematical sciences, music, 
geometry, and astronomy, are learned in a similar 
manner.'' 

When sufficient time for digestion has been passed 
in light and easy pastimes of this sort they enter 
upon the main studies of the day. Former studies 
are reviewed and new studies are introduced. At the 
close, another period is devoted to physical exercise, 
horseback riding, hunting, exercises with the sword 
and the lance, swimming, climbing, shouting, etc. 
Soothed and refreshed by a bath they take a walk 
in the open, studying trees, plants, and flowers. 
After a hearty evening meal they occupy themselves 
with music or cards, or engage in conversation with 
travelers, writers, or other able and interesting men. 
Before retiring the heavens are again noted. The 
day closes with the Pythagorean exercise of recalling 
everything learned or experienced during the day. In 
bad weather visits to the shops of craftsmen were 
substituted for the outdoor exercises and studies. In 
the attention paid to physical training and to the 
direct study of things and processes important in 
everyday life, as well as in the spirit of interest and 
enjoyment which permeates the whole, the course is 
instinct with the purer spirit of the early Renaissance 
and is in sharp contrast with the work of the medieval 
schools. 

Montaigne. — Another influential writer on educa- 
tion was Michel de Montaigne, a French nobleman, 



EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS 209 

the earliest and one of the greatest of the essayists. 
He had himself been the object of some curious ex- 
periments in education. " Before the first loosing of 
my tongue," he writes, " I was delivered to a German 
. . . exquisitely ready and skilful in the Latin." 
From his early infancy Montaigne heard nothing but 
Latin and acquired a thorough knowledge of the lan- 
guage. In two of his essays, ' On Pedantry ' and * On 
the Education of Children,' he sets forth clearly 
the early Renaissance attitude toward education in 
that, condemning and opposing the blind and unthink- 
ing study of the subjects of the traditional school 
course, he advocated such instruction and training 
only as would most contribute to the richness and ful- 
ness of life in the everyday world of the present. 
'' We labor, and toil, and plod to fill the memory," he 
writes, ^' and leave both understanding and conscience 
empty." ..." We can talk and prate, Cicero saith 
thus, these are Plato's customs, these are the very 
words of Aristotle; but what say we ourselves? 
What do we? What judge we? . . . Whereto 
serveth learning if understanding be not joined to 
it?" Regarding the tutor, Montaigne writes, "I 
would rather prefer wisdom, judgment, civil customs, 
modest behavior than bare and mere literal learning. 
... I would not have him to invent and speak 
alone, but suffer his disciple to speak when his turn 
Cometh. ... I would not only have him to demand 
an account of the words contained in the lesson but of 
the sense and substance thereof. ... I would have 
him make his scholar narrowly to sift all things with 



^10 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

discretion, and harbor nothing in his head by mere 
authority or on trust. . . . It is not sufficient to 
make his mind strong, his muscles must also be 
strengthened. . . . He must be enured to suffer 
the pain and hardness of exercises." After some 
direction as to the cultivation of manners, Montaigne 
recommends as regards the course of study, " Let him 
hardly be possessed with an honest curiosity to search 
out the nature and causes of all things; let him survey 
whatsoever is rare and singular about him; a build- 
ing, a fountain, a man, a place where any battle hath 
been fought. . . . He shall by the help of histories 
inform himself of the worthiest minds that were in 
the best ages. . . . To conclude, I would have this 
world's frame to be my scholar's choice book; so 
many strange humors, sundry sects, varying judg- 
ments, diverse opinions, different laws, and fantastical 
customs teach us to judge rightly of ours; ... so 
many innovations of estates, so many falls of princes, 
and changes of public fortune, may and ought to 
teach us not to make so great account of ours. . . . 
I would not have his budding spirit corrupted with 
keeping him fast-tied, and, as it were, laboring four- 
teen or fifteen hours a day poring on his book . . . 
for that doth often make him both unapt for civil con- 
versation and distracts him from better employments. 
... All sports and exercises shall be a part of his 
study; running, wrestling, music, dancing, hunting, 
and managing of arms and horses. I would have 
the exterior demeanor or decency and the disposition 
of his person to be fashioned together with his mind; 



EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS 21 1 

for it is not a mind, it is not a body that we erect, 
but it Is a man, and we must not make two parts of 
him." In regard to the study of Latin and Greek, 
which occupied by far the greater part of the time 
of the schools, Montaigne writes, " I would first 
know mine own tongue perfectly, then my neighbors' 
with whom I have most commerce. I must needs 
acknowledge that the Latin and Greek tongues are 
great ornaments in a gentleman, but they are pur- 
chased at over-high a rate." 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND IN THE 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

Early In the seventeenth century the English 
colonies In America had become fairly well estab- 
lished, and the school along with other religious and 
municipal institutions was transplanted In the soil of 
the New World. The character of these schools will 
be better understood after a survey of the European 
schools of this period, especially those of England 
and Scotland. 

The progress of general school education in Eng- 
land had been checked in the destruction, through the 
execution of the Chantries Act, of many of the song 
schools which had hitherto afforded the poorer classes 
an elementary education. Hoole, a teacher and an 
educational writer of the seventeenth century, classi- 
fies the schools of his time into Petty, Writing, and 
Grammar schools. In the petty or reading school 
only the alphabet, reading, and spelling were taught, 
though in some instances it strove to afford a knowl- 
edge of the rudiments of Latin sufficient to enable the 
pupil to take up the work of the grammar school. 
In the writing school, as the name Indicates, writ- 
ing was taught and more advanced exercises In read- 
ing were given. Sometimes arithmetic and occa- 



ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 21 3 

sionally other arts useful In everyday life, such as 
drawing and music, were also taught. The gram- 
mar school was concerned almost exclusively in de- 
veloping a reading and writing knowledge of Latin 
and in some cases of Greek. 

The schools of each of these classes varied greatly 
in character; furthermore, the functions of two or 
more of them were often performed by one and the 
same institution. 

In some instances the petty school was endowed, 
but as a rule so meagerly that only those in the most 
destitute circumstances would take up the work. 
Hoole speaks of petty school teachers as " Poor 
women or others whose necessities compel them to 
undertake it as a mere shelter from beggary." Here 
and there the petty school was an outgrowth of an 
ancient institution, the day nursery or * creche ' still 
common in Europe. It Is to this that the poet Crabbe 
refers : 

" To every class we have a school assigned, 
Rules for all ranks and food for every mind ; 
Yet one there is that small regard to rule 
Or study pays, and still Is deemed a school; 
That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits. 
And awes some thirty Infants as she knits — 
Infants of humble, busy v^^Ives who pay 
Some trifling price for freedom through the day." 



The features characteristic of a school are more 
prominent in the institution described in Shenstone's 
* Schoolmistress ' : 



214 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

" In every village marked v^ith little spire 
Embowered in trees and hardly known to fame; 
There dwells in lowly shed and mean attire, 
A matron old whom we Schoolmistress name ; . . . 
. . . Lo — now with state she utters her command 
Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair; 
Their books of stature small they take in hand, 
Which with pellucid horn secured are 
To save from finger wet the letters fair." 

As regards the buildings and furniture of these 
schools a commissioner of a somewhat later period 
reports, " The Dames usually live In one room which 
serves every purpose. . . . Scholars may often be 
seen sitting round the sides of a four-post bed on low 
forms, the sides of the bed forming a back to the 
seat, sometimes on the sides of the bed.'' 

Here and there the people of a parish seem to have 
provided for an elementary school by voluntarily tax- 
ing themselves, but It Is not until the eighteenth cen- 
tury that we find In England traces of the beginning 
of a general movement for the school education of 
the people as a whole. 

The elementary education of the young of the 
middle and upper classes consisted In preparation for 
the work of the grammar school. Among the gentry 
and nobility this work was carried on at home under 
the care of a tutor. Provision for elementary In- 
struction was, however, sometimes made In connection 
with the grammar school. This elementary depart- 
ment was maintained frequently by extra tuition 
charges ; sometimes, however, by the endowment as In 
the Chesterfield grammar school, the endowment of 



ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 21$ 

which provided a salary of £15 for the master and 
one of £8 for an ' A-B-C-Darius.' 

The writing schools were probably a continuation 
of the writing and reckoning schools of the medieval 
period. They were attended by the pupils who had 
finished the ' Petties ' and who wished such instruc- 
tion as would fit them for ordinary business life. The 
chief subjects of these schools, writing and arith- 
metic, were still regarded as semi-professional in 
character. 

The grammar schools of the period may be divided 
roughly into three classes: 

I. Those formerly connected with religious insti- 
tutions, chantries, guilds, etc., and which were main- 
tained wholly or in part by a fixed government stipend 
in lieu of the lands and possessions confiscated by 
the crown. 

II. Those endowed by individuals or corporations 
since the Reformation period. 

III. Old institutions like Eton and Winchester, 
which, exempted from the operation of the Chantries 
Act, retained their property. 

Many of the first class are called the Royal Gram- 
mar Schools of Henry VIII, Edv/ard VI, Queen 
Mary, or Queen EHzabeth, and are commonly re- 
ferred to in reports as having been founded by the 
sovereign whose name they bear. Of those of the 
second and third classes some, such as Eton, Win- 
chester, Harrow, and Rugby, have, owing to the 
munificence of their founders or other causes, be- 
come great national schools. 



2l6 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 
SURVIVAL OF CLERICAL CONTROL 

The transfer of schools from the Church to the 
state brought about through the Chantries Act did 
not bring to an end, however, the tradition of clerical 
control of the schools. This tradition gave rise to 
disputes in the seventeenth as in earlier centuries. 
In 1 6x6 the 'eighteen men' elected to control the 
school in the parish of Crosthwaite in Cumberland 
had dismissed the schoolmaster, Thomas Garth, for 
negligence and misconduct. But " notwithstanding 
their discharge he had intruded himself into the 
school by the countenance and assistance of Henry, 
Lord Bishop of Carlisle, and Giles Robinson, his 
brother, then Vicar of Crosthwaite, who pretended to 
have the power of collation, placing and displacing 
of the schoolmaster." A court of inquisition set- 
tled the dispute byrdecreeing "that the eighteen 
sworn men of the parish\t that time and to be elected 
thereafter, shall be as of Vight they are and ought 
to be . . . the sole and orn^y governors of the said 
school." 

COURSES OF STUDY, METHODS, DISCIPLINE OF SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY SCHOOLS 

Nothing more clearly indicates the descent of the 
elementary school from the schools of the Church 
than the procedure in teaching to read. The work 
began with the ' hornbook,* a wooden paddle on 
which, covered by a plate of transparent horn, was a 
placard containing the alphabet In small letters and 



ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 217 

in capitals, a few simple combinations of letters, ab, 
eb, ib, ob, etc., also a benediction and the Lord's 
Prayer (see p. 214). The cross usually found at the 
head of the alphabet was perhaps placed there origi- 
nally to invoke divine aid and to counteract any evil 
magic that might lurk In those mysterious signs. In 
1398 John Trevisa quaintly writes: 

" Cross was made all of red 
In the beginning of my boke 
That Is called God me sped. 
In the first lesson that I took. 
Then I learned a and b. 
And other letters by her names; 
But alwey God spede me 
Thoughte me needful In all games.'* 

Following the hornbook came the ' abce,' or the 
' abcie,' a series of distichs the chief words of each of 
v/hich began respectively with the letters of the al- 
phabet in order, thus: 

A. In Adam's fall C. The cat doth play 
We sinned all. And after slay. 

B. Thy life to mend D. A dog will bite 
This ^ook attend. A thief at night. 

These are common In the child's books of to-day. 

The * abce ' mastered, the child took up the read- 
ing of the primer, so called because it was originally 
a book of prayers and devotional exercises used at the 
prime or dawn. At the Reformation It contained 
prayers, graces suited to a variety of occasions, and 
meditations ; later It contained also passages from the 



2l8 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Catechism, all of which were to be memorized. In 
New England at the close of the seventeenth century 
the hornbook, the * abce,' and the primer were com- 
bined into one and the name * primer ' was given to 
the whole. The famous ' New England Primer ' is 
a book typical of this class. 

The reading-books were almost all religious in 
character. The following recommended by Hoole 
seem to represent fairly well those actually in use. 
" The first and lowest [form] should be of those that 
learn to know their letters, whose lessons may be in 
the primer; the second [form], of those that learn to 
spell, whose lessons may be in the single Psalter; the 
third, of those that learn to read, whose lessons may 
be in the Bible; the fourth, of those that are exer- 
cised in reading, writing, and casting accounts, whose 
lessons may be in such profitable English books as 
the parents can best provide and the master thinks 
fittest to be taught." 

Writing, though taught regularly in the writing 
school, was sometimes taken up in the later stages of 
the petty school course. It seems to have been a 
source of trouble to the often Ignorant and incapable 
elementary teachers of the times. One of these gives 
his experience as follows: "I have daily set them 
copies, so well as I could, which hath been no small 
toil unto me; or else I have caused some of my 
scholars or some others to do it, . . . and it may 
be I have corrected them for writing so badly or 
guided some of their hands or shown them how to 
amend their letters. This I take to be the mxDst that 



ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 219 

is done in schools ordinarily; unless any do procure 
scriveners to teach in their towns." The teachers in 
the regular writing schools, we may presume, pos- 
sessed a greater mastery of the art. The passage 
just quoted shows that the connection between the 
arts of the scrivener and the teacher, noted in ancient 
and medieval times (see pp. 7, 67, 164) , persisted un- 
til a comparatively recent period. It was not uncom- 
mon even in colonial America. In 1684 Guilliam 
Bertholf, a New Jersey teacher, describes himself as 
" schoolmaster and authorized scrivener residing at 
Acquackanonck." 

In the petty school frequently no attention was 
paid to arithmetic. Mulcaster, writing in the six- 
teenth century, makes no mention of arithmetic as an 
elementary school subject. " This therefore shall 
suffice now that children are to be trained up in the 
Elementarie Schoole — in these fower things, Reading, 
Writing, Drawing, and Musick." He relegates 
mathematics, including arithmetic, to the collegiate 
course. The subject seems to have had a regular 
place only in the curriculum of the writing school. 
Even in America during this period, says Eggleston, 
" a lad of fifteen or more on leaving the grammar 
school was often ignorant of numbers; some did not 
know the numerals, Roman or Arabic, and could 
not find the chapter in the Bible, much less the 
verse." 

The course of study in the grammar school had 
undergone no essential change since the time of Sturm 
and Colet. 



220 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

In petty schools, writing schools, or grammar 
schools such as these were trained the pioneers of the 
great English colonies in America, and these were the 
schools which they erected with such promptitude 
when they had established themselves in their new 
home. 



I 



CHAPTER XVII 

EARLY COLONIAL SCHOOLS IN 
AMERICA 

If the preoccupation of the Puritan pioneers of 
New England with purely religious questions nar- 
rowed somewhat their outlook on life, their Calvin- 
istic doctrines made it logically necessary for them to 
attach importance to the school education of the 
young. If salvation is by faith alone, and if the 
Bible is " the only infallible rule of faith and prac- 
tice," it becomes vastly important, not only that 
gifted men should be trained to the true interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures, but that every one should 
obtain at least enough schooling to enable him to 
read them. It is this attitude toward education that 
is expressed in the Massachusetts Ordinance of 1647. 
" It being one of the chief projects of that old deluder, 
Satan, to keep men from the. knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures, as in former times, by keeping them in an un- 
known tongue, so in these later times by persuading 
them from the use of tongues, that so at least the true 
sense and meaning might be clouded by false glosses 
of saint-seeming deceivers; and that learning may 
not be buried in the grave of our forefathers in 
Church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our 
endeavors: it is therefore ordered — that every town- 

221 



222 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ship in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased 
them to the number of fifty house-holders, shall then 
forthwith appoint one within their own town to 
teach all such children as shall resort to him to write 
and read." Hence the promptitude with which 
schools were established in the infant settlements of 
New England. In addition to this motive there 
were others. Many of the Puritan settlers were 
people of wealth and culture, who had attended 
grammar schools and colleges in England, and who 
would naturally feel more keenly the need of such 
institutions in their new home. In 1635, five years 
after the settlement of Boston, the town meeting 
voted *' that our brother, Philemon Pormont, shall 
be intreated to become schoolmaster, for the teach- 
ing and nourtering of children with us." In the 
following year a subscription was made in a " gen- 
eral meeting of the richer inhabitants . . . towards 
the maintenance of a free schoolmaster for the youth 
with us, Mr. Daniel Maud being now chosen there- 
unto." 

These earliest schools were maintained frequently, 
in accordance with the English custom, by endow- 
ments of land. The Mr. Pormont above mentioned is 
said to have received thirty acres of land. Later the 
rents of Deer, Spectacle, and Long islands in Boston 
harbor were set aside for the support of the Boston 
Latin School. The first schools in Charlestown and 
Dorchester were supported by the rents from Lov- 
ell's and Thomson's islands respectively. The Gen- 
eral Court granted Charlestown and Cambridge 



EARLY COLONIAL SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 223 

1000 acres each toward the support of their gram- 
mar schools. In 1 67 1, Thomas Bell, in the time- 
honored English fashion, left about 200 acres of land 
" to and for the maintenance of a schoolemaster and 
free school for the teaching and instructing of poore 
men's children at Roxbury." 

An interesting beginning in the way of supporting 
schools by a municipal tax is to be noted in the Con- 
necticut colony of New Haven in 1642. A court 
record of that date reads : '* Itt is ordered thatt a free 
schoole shall be sett up in this towne and our pastor, 
Mr. Davenport, together with the magistrates, shall 
consider whatt yearly allowance is meete to be given 
to itt out of the common stock of the towne." 

Hitherto only individual schools have been men- 
tioned. An early beginning of our state system of 
schools may be traced in the ordinance above men- 
tioned of the General Court of Massachusetts: 
" That every township in this jurisdiction, after the 
Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty 
house-holders, shall then forthwith appoint one with- 
in their town to teach all such children as shall re- 
sort to him to write and to read, whose wages shall 
be paid either by the parents or masters of such chil- 
dren or by the inhabitants in general." Similarly 
every town of 100 house-holders was to support a 
grammar school. 

CLASSES OF COLONIAL SCHOOLS 

The first schools founded in New England were 
naturally of the same classes as those in England, 



224 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

The Boston Latin, the first of these, conformed 
closely to the type of the ordinary grammar school 
of England. The Salem grammar school was 
founded about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. About 1699 a writing school was established. 
In the smaller communities the petty, writing, and 
grammar schools were sometimes united, although 
as a rule the distinction between the grammar and 
the more elementary schools seems to have been pre- 
served. The plan for Connecticut and ultimately for 
all the colonies comprised " common schools," in 
which boys might " learn to read and write and cast 
up accounts and make some entrance into the Latin 
tongue; secondly, a school with a schoolmaster qual- 
ified to teach Latin, Greek, and Hebrew." In Amer- 
ica as in England the Dame school was a common 
form of the petty school. Later it became the cus- 
tom in rural districts to engage a schoolmistress for 
the younger children during the summer, while a 
master was engaged to teach the older pupils during 
the winter. 

THE DECLINE OF THE COLONIAL SCHOOLS 

For a generation or two the fear of the Indians 
led the colonists to live together in towns where the 
maintenance of and attendance at schools was more 
practicable and where the need for them was greater 
than it would be in the country. With the removal 
of this danger they began to scatter through the wide 
wilderness which they had undertaken to subdue. 
This had an important effect upon the schools. Just 



EARLY COLONIAL SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 225 

as culture and the schools which transmit it flourish in 
centers of population, they decline when these are 
broken up. • Not only was the need of culture less 
urgent to these isolated families, but living at dis- 
tances from one another it became less practicable 
for the children to assemble in schools. ' Moreover, 
the rationalistic reaction against the excessive relig- 
iosity of the Puritan movement was already setting 
in, and the decline of interest in the Church meant a 
decline of the schools, most of which were, at that 
time, mere annexes to it. Even in towns the schools 
fell more and more into neglect. To prevent this 
fines were imposed upon delinquent communities; 
later these were doubled, but all to no avail. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

BACON AND THE NEW ERA IN 
SCIENCE 

While European civilization and its schools were 
thus being transplanted into the Western Hemisphere, 
a great movement in the intellectual world, which 
was to mold the character of the cultural activity of 
succeeding ages, and which had been inaugurated 
mainly under the leadership of Francis Bacon, was 
slowly gaining headway. 

The humanistic Renaissance led naturally to the 
study of natural objects ^nd forces. The medieval 
scholar regarded the present material world with 
relatively little interest or intelligence. Books, par- 
ticularly the works of Aristotle, were used as the 
most reliable sources of information regarding natu- 
ral objects. With the revival of interest in man and 
this present life men began to make a first-hand study 
of nature. In this pursuit certain men of genius, 
such as Leonardo da Vinci, employed the Inductive 
method. The work of formulating this method 
and of attracting general attention to its vast impor- 
tance in extending man's knowledge of and hence 
his control over nature was carried out by Bacon. 

Hitherto in none of the great periods of intellec- 
226 



BACON AND THE NEW ERA IN SCIENCE 227 

tual revival had the human mind centered its efforts 
upon a systematic and effective study of nature. And 
yet it is the knowledge of and the consequent ability 
to control and appropriate natural forces and ob- 
jects that constitute the very foundation of civiliza- 
tion. Bacon's aim was to establish the natural 
sciences, and through the effective pursuit of them to 
'' lay more firmly the foundations and extend more 
widely the limits of the power and greatness of 
man" (N. O., Aph. 116). 

Bacon accounts for the backwardness of the natural 
sciences by stating that only six out of the twenty- 
five centuries that had elapsed from the beginning of 
the Greek period had been centuries of progress, and 
even during these six centuries the human mind had 
turned aside to the pursuit of speculative philosophy, 
politics, morals, or theology, and had paid least at- 
tention to the natural sciences; and the little effort 
that had been made had been rendered nugatory 
through erroneous methods. Hence " from all these 
systems of the Greeks and their ramifications . . . 
there can hardly ... be adduced a single experi- 
ment which tends to relieve and benefit the condi- 
tion of man " (N. O., Aph. 73). " An astonishing 
thing it is," he writes, "... that no mortal 
should have seriously applied himself to the open- 
ing and laying out of a road for the human under- 
standing direct from the sense, by a course of experi- 
ment orderly conducted and well built up; but that 
all has been left either to the mist of tradition, or 
the whirl and eddy of argument, or the fluctuation 



228 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

and mazes of chance, and of vague and ill-digested ex- 
perience." 

He strove to lead men from the relatively profit- 
less studies of logic, speculative philosophy, and the- 
ology to the acquisition of accurate knowledge of the 
world of nature amidst which they lived. For, 
" Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, 
can do and understand so much and so much only 
as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course 
of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything 
nor can do anything" (N. O., Aph. i). The re- 
sults of these investigations were to be made reliable 
through the application of direct observation, experi- 
ment, and painstaking induction, " that so at length, 
after the lapse of so many ages, philosophy and the 
sciences may no longer float in air, but rest on the 
solid foundation of experience of every kind, and the 
same well examined and weighed" (N. O., Ded. 

\ Ep.). "Those who aspire," he says, "not to guess 
and divine, but to discover and know, who propose 
not to devise mimic and fabulous worlds of their 
own,^ but to examine and dissect the nature of this 
very world itself, must go to facts themselves for 
everything, nor can the place of this labor and re- 
search and world-wide perambulation be supplied by 
any genius or meditation." 

— Bacon was enthusiastically confident that the pur- 
suit, by the method of experimental observation and 
induction, of knowledge of the natural world about 
us, would bear fruit in " helps to man and a line and 
^ For examples of this see pp. 124 and 125. 



BACON AND THE NEW ERA IN SCIENCE 229 

race of inventions that may in some degree subdue 
and overcome the necessities and miseries of human- 
ity " (N. O., Plan). Subsequent history has sub- 
stantiated his views. 

The amelioration of the conditions of human life 
he considered the great end of science. Knowledge, 
he contended, is to be sought, " not for pleasure of 
the mind, or for contention — or for profit, or fame, 
or power — but for the benefit and use of life " 
(N. O., Pref.). '' The true and lawful goal of the 
sciences is none other than this; that human life be 
endowed with new discoveries and powers " (N. O., 
Aph. 81). Furthermore, he maintained that through 
the application of the inductive method the natural 
sciences would be lifted out of the condition of stag- 
nation in which they had remained for centuries, and 
made to live and increase, for " what is founded on 
nature grows and increases; while that which is 
found on opinion varies but increases not " (N. O., 
Aph. 74). 

Notwithstanding the fact that the mastery of the 
method has required much more time and pains than 
Bacon and his co-workers anticipated, and that the 
operations of nature are infinitely more abstruse than 
they imagined, the truths promulgated by Bacon have 
borne abundant fruit in making our age pre-emi- 
nently one of invention and of scientific discovery, 
and in enormously extending the control of man over 
nature. 



/ 



N 



CHAPTER XIX 

SCHOOL REFORMERS OF THE SEV- 
ENTEENTH CENTURY 

Ratke. — One of the first to apply these great re- 
forms in scientific method to the work of the school 
was Wolfgang Ratke. After graduating from the 
University of Rostock, and finding himself ill-fitted 
for the clerical profession, he traveled in Holland 
and in England, where he was infected with the pre- 
vailing enthusiasm for the new scientific method re- 
cently set forth by Bacon. 

The system of school reform to which he devoted 
mainly the rest of his life manifests the influence of 
these new ideas. He emphasizes the importance of 
direct observation as a means of acquiring knowl- 
edge, and proposes the, at that time, novel plan 
of giving instruction in the arts and sciences in the 
mother tongue. 

Comeniiis. — A little later, Comenius, a leader 
among an evangelical religious sect known as the 
Moravian Brethren, skilfully embodied something of 
the new scientific spirit in a scheme of education 
essentially religious in its aims. Notwithstanding his 
somewhat narrow religious point of view, his outlook 
on school education is so comprehensive and clear 

230 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REFORMERS 231 

and his suggestions as to school procedure are so 
eminently wise that they will be discussed more in 
detail. / 

John Amos Comenlus, pastor and later bishop 
among the Moravian Brethren, became famous 
throughout Europe as the author of the ' Janua Lin- 
guarum/ a Latin text-book in which the different fea- 
tures of the environment of everyday life were dis- 
cussed in a series of lessons printed in Latin and in 
the mother tongue in parallel columns. 

Left an orphan, his early education was neglected 
by his guardians until he himself set about remedy- 
ing the defect and with such zeal that, notwithstand- 
ing the deficiencies of the schools he attended, he 
completed his college course while still too young 
to be admitted to the ministry. Hence he began 
teaching in the school at Prerau, where he had re- 
ceived his secondary instruction. His interest in 
school-work suffered no diminution when later he 
was appointed pastor at Fulneck, where the super- 
vision of the schools formed part of his official duties. 
A few years later he and his co-religionists, banished 
from Bohemia, found refuge at Lissa in Poland. 
Here Comenius was appointed master and later Rec- 
tor in the Gymnasium. 

Comenius was a voluminous writer not only of 
school texts and treatises on education but of theo- 
logical and scientific works. So wide was his fame 
as an educator that he was invited to various coun- 
tries to consult with the authorities regarding the re- 
organization of schools, and he actually visited for 



232 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

this purpose England and Sweden. While at Lissa 
he published the ' Janua ' and the * Great Didactic' 

The * Great Didactic ^ remains to-day one of the 
most comprehensive, one of the clearest and most 
logically planned of all general treatises on education. 
It is at once a work on the philosophy of education, 
on principles of method, and on school organization 
and management. Notwithstanding the limitations 
of the book, it advocates a surprisingly large num- 
ber of the educational principles now generally re- 
garded as valid. 

Comenius's somewhat narrowly religious concep- 
tion of school education is manifest in the opening 
chapters, in which the necessity for school education 
is demonstrated as follows: Man is the highest and 
noblest of God's creatures (chap, i) destined to hve 
throughout an eternity (chap. 2), for which this life 
Is but a preparation (chap. 3). This preparation 
consists in the development of learning, virtue, and 
piety (chap. 4). Though the germs of these are 
implanted within us (chap. 5), their full develop- 
ment can be brought about only through education 
(chap. 6), and this can be accomplished most satis- 
factorily in schools where the young are educated in 
common (chaps. 7 and 8). After advocating the 
school education of girls (chap. 9), and a school 
curriculum comprehensive enough to afford Instruc- 
tion in " the principles, the causes, and the uses of 
all the most important things In existence " (chap. 
10), he proceeds to point out the defects In the 
school-work of his time. Referring to Luther's de- 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REFORMERS 233 

sire that schools should be founded for boys and 
girls of even the poorest classes, and that pleasant 
methods of instruction might be devised, he con- 
tinues : *' Where are those universal schools and 
where is that attractive method? It is evident that 
nothing has been done, since in the smaller villages 
and hamlets no schools have been founded. Where 
schools exist they are not for the whole community, 
but only for the rich." In these " The study of the 
Latin language alone (to take this subject as an ex- 
ample), good heavens! how intricate, how compli- 
cated, and how prolix it was! " (chap. 11). In the 
next chapter Comenius introduces his own system by 
which he claims that: 

I. " All the young shall be educated (except those to 
whom God has denied understanding). 

II. And in all those subjects which are able to make a 
man wise, virtuous and pious. 

III. That the process of education, being a preparation for 
life, shall be coinpleted before maturity is reached. 

IV. That this education shall be conducted without blows, 
rigor or compulsion, as gently and pleasantly as possible and 
in the most natural manner . . . 

V. That the education given shall not be false but real, 
not superficial but thorough; that is to say that the rational 
animal, man, shall be guided not by the intellects of other 
men but by his own ; . . . shall acquire the habit of genu- 
inely understanding and making use of what he learns. 

VI. That this education shall not be laborious but very 
easy. The class Instruction shall last only four hours each 
day." 

Defects In school-work he ascribes to lack of 
order. " The art of teaching demands nothing 



234 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

more than the skilful arrangement of time, of tHe 
subjects taught, and of the method." In his con- 
viction " that that order, which is the dominating 
principle in the art of teaching, . . . can be bor- 
rowed from no other source but the operations of 
nature," he manifests the influence of Bacon, though 
the principle followed in the construction of his sys- 
tem is really that of analogy and not that of the 
Baconian inductive method. He approaches nature 
*' in the character of a pupil who listens to all that his 
master has to tell him," and not '' in that of a judge 
who compels witnesses to reply to the questions which 
he sees fit to propose." In chapters i6 to 19, inclu- 
sive, Comenius claims through this reference to na- 
ture to arrive at principles which will guide in teach- 
ing certainly, easily, thoroughly, and quickly. Nine 
or ten principles are formulated for the attainment of 
each of the first three of the above ends. Each 
of these principles, in order that it may have as firm a 
basis as possible, is derived ostensibly from the ob- 
servation of nature. *' Since this basis," says Co- 
menius, " can be properly laid only by assimilating 
the processes of art as much as possible to those of 
nature ... we will follow the method of nature, 
taking as our example a bird hatching out its young." 
Each principle thus derived is found to be applicable 
in several ways to school-work. The discovery and 
formulation of each principle is followed by illus- 
trations of its application in other callings. " If we 
see," says Comenius, " with what good results gar- 
deners, painters, and builders follow in the track of 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REFORMERS 235 

nature, we shall have to recognize that the educator 
of the young should follow in the same path." Then 
under the heading ' Deviation,' he shows wherein 
school-work has hitherto not been in accordance with 
the principle in question. Finally, under the heading 
* Rectification,' he instances particular applications of 
the principle to the improvement of school-work. 
The following from Comenius's discussion of his 
first principle for teaching surely, will serve as an 
illustration. 

I. *^ Nature observes a suitable time, — For ex- 
ample : a bird that wishes to multiply its species does 
not set about it in winter, when everything is stiff 
with cold, nor in the summer, when everything is 
parched with heat — but in the spring, when the sun 
brings back life and strength to all. 

Imitation. — In the same way the gardener . . . 
does not plant in winter . . . nor in summer . . . 
but in the spring, when the moisture is beginning to 
rise from the roots and the upper part of the plant 
begins to shoot. ... In the same manner the care- 
ful builder must choose the right time for cutting 
timber, burning bricks, laying foundations, etc. 

Deviation. — In direct opposition to this principle, 
a twofold error is committed in the schools. (I) 
The right time is not chosen. (II) The exercises 
are not properly divided. ... As long as the boy 

is still a child he can be taught. ... As soon as 

he becomes old it is too late. .. .. . The season of 

youth must therefore be chosen. 



236 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Rectification. — We conclude, therefore, that 

1. The education of men should be commenced 
in the springtime of life. 

II. The morning hours are most suitable for study. 

III. All the subjects that are to be learned should 
be arranged so as to suit the age of the students, that 
nothing which is beyond their comprehension be 
given them to learn." 

Proceeding in this manner the other principles for 
teaching with certainty which he discovers are: 

2. Selection beforehand of the best books, mate- 
rials, programs, methods. 

3. Preparation of the pupil's mind for the lesson. 

4. Taking up only one topic at a time. 

5. Leading the pupil first to understand, then to 
memorize. 

6. Teaching general outlines first, then details. 

7. Careful graduation of the work. 

8. Avoidance of interruption or disturbance. 

9. Avoidance of evil companions and unsuitable 
books. 

His suggestions for teaching easily are no less 
apt. 

1. Begin early. 2. Prepare the mind for each les- 
son. 3. Teach first outlines, important points, then 
details. 4. Proceed from easy to difficult. 5. Avoid 
making lessons too difficult. 6. Proceed slowly. 7. 
Adapt the work to the age and mental characteristics 
of the child. 8. Teach everything through the me- 
dium of the senses. 9. Lead pupils to make, use of 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REFORMERS 237 

what they have learned. 10. Use the same method 
in all lessons. 

Similarly, In order to teach thoroughly, he rec- 
ommends : I. Teach only what is of practical value. 
2. Permit no digressions or interruptions. 3. Lay a 
good foundation by (a) arousing interest, (b) giv- 
ing first the main outlines. 4. Have the main out- 
lines thoroughly mastered. 5 and 6. Lead pupils to 
appreciate the logical connection of the facts and 
their relation to the central subject. 7. Proceed from 
cause to effect. 8. Let the pupils learn the reasons 
for the facts learned and constantly compare the facts 
learned in different exercises. 9. Lead pupils to 
realize the use of what has been learned. 10. Review 
constantly. The principles for teaching quickly are 
arrived at through a somewhat different plan. 

In the remaining chapters Comenius discusses help- 
fully methods of teaching the sciences, arts, lan- 
guages, morals, and piety. He then outlines his plan 
of school organization: the Mother School, Vernac- 
ular School, Latin School, and University ; the course 
in each occupying a period of six years. The titles 
indicate sufficiently the nature of the work In each 
school. 

The little effect which Comenius's views had upon 
actual school-work must be explained by the troubled 
condition of the times, the period of the devastating 
Thirty Years' War. 

In 1658 was published at Nuremberg Comenlus's 
' Orbis Pictus,' a revised and simplified edition of the 
*Janua,' profusely illustrated. This, the first illus- 



238 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

trated text-book ever published for children, attained 
an even wider popularity than the * Janua/ and is 
referred to by Goethe as being in use even in his time. 
Each lesson follows a picture. The number attached 
to the name of each object in the text corresponds to 
that attached to its representation in the picttire. 

From the close of the seventeenth to near the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth the educational writings of 
Comenius seem to have fallen into oblivion. It was 
only in the 40's of the latter century that the ' Great 
Didactic ' was discovered and republished. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE ENLIGHTENMENT 

The passions inflamed by the religious controver- 
sies of the Reformation period spent themselves in 
the devasting Thirty Years' War of Germany, the 
Huguenot Wars in France, and the Civil War in 
England and the reaction which inevitably follows 
upon extremes began. From a condition bordering 
upon fanaticism many passed into one of indifference 
towards matters of religion. As interest in theology 
declined, interest in the great and promising fields 
of scientific investigation mapped out by Bacon be- 
came more general. The interminable and fruitless 
controversies over theological questions had created 
a hunger foj truth and certainty that found peculiar 
satisfaction in the mathematical and natural sciences. 

The exclusively literary courses of the grammar 
schools shared in the disrepute into which theology 
had fallen. For this reason the traditional school- 
work suffered a decline. 

The efficiency of mathematical reasoning as a 
means of revealing the truths of nature was brilliantly 
demonstrated in the discoveries of Galileo and New- 
ton. Clear and mathematically accurate knowledge of 
knowable things came more and more to be the aim 
of the educated classes and the reason was exalted 

239 



240 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

as the faculty through which alone this end could be 
attained. The period thus characterized is known 
as that of the Enlightenment. In proportion as the 
reason was exalted, the emotional side of man's 
nature, which had been so much stimulated in the 
earlier humanistic and religious movements, was 
neglected. It is with good reason that Locke in the 
preface to his ' Essay on the Human Understanding ' 
speaks of his as " the knowing age." Learning no 
longer consists merely in the mastery of the classical 
languages and literatures. " The commonwealth of 
learning," he continues, " is not at this time without 
master-builders, whose mighty designs in advancing 
the sciences will leave lasting monuments to the ad- 
miration of posterity." 

So radical and thorough-going was this movement 
that it has left its lasting impress upon various aspects 
of the life of the age. Whereas systematic: arrange- 
ment and careful attention to form are of the first 
importance in the reasoning process, the emotions are 
in their very essence tumultuous and irregular. It is 
not then to be wondered at that the works of Dryden 
and particularly of Pope, the representative English 
poets of this period, should be remarkable not only 
for lack of true feeling but for regularity and nicety 
of form. The same formality is noticeable not only 
in art and architecture but in manners and dress. 
Countries of a regular, level surface like Holland 
were considered more beautiful than rugged Switzer- 
land or Scotland. The gardens of the time were laid 
out in geometrical designs. Trees were clipped into 



THE ENLIGHTENMENT 24 1 

spheres, cubes, cones, and other definite forms. In 
the universities mathematics, physics, and chemistry- 
held sway. The abounding faith In the efficiency 
of the human reason Is shown In the universality of Its 
application. Spinoza's great work on ethics consists 
of a series of demonstrated propositions closely re- 
sembling in form a treatise on geometry. While 
Paley In his ' Natural Theology ' demonstrated with 
would-be mathematical precision and finality the doc- 
trines of revealed religion, Thomas Paine, an Ameri- 
can, In his book named significantly * The Age of 
Reason ' (the age was clearly cognizant of itself) 
claimed to demonstrate their falsity. 



CHAPTER XXI 

ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL WRITERS 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 



OF 



Milton. — The Influence of this rationalistic move- 
ment, commonly known as the Enlightenment, Is 
evident even In the Puritan Milton's brief * Tractate 
on Education.' Amidst the dangers and adversities 
which beset the Puritan poet and scholar under the 
Restoration he acted as tutor to his nephews. As was 
to be expected from the character of his genius, the 
course of study he proposes Is truly cyclopean in Its 
plan. It combines the new mathematical-scientific 
studies with those not only of the humanistic but of 
the medieval curricula. Truly, as Milton himself 
concludes, this educational scheme " is not a bow for 
every man to shoot that counts himself a teacher." 
He thinks only of the education of boys and those 
only of the upper classes. That his views were, 
however, essentially In harmony with those of the 
most enlightened of his age is manifest not only in 
his great definition of " a complete and generous edu- 
cation " as '' that which fits a man to perform justly, 
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices both 
private and public of peace and war," but In many 
other passages of like tenor. Though he demands of 
the student a thorough knowledge not only of Latin 

242 



ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL WRITERS 243 

and Greek but also of Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and 
Italian, yet these are to be studied not for their own 
sake, but for the knowledge and culture which they 
mediate. " And though," he continues, " a linguist 
should pride himself to have all the tongues that 
Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied 
the solid things in them as well as the words and lexi- 
cons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a 
learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman com- 
petently wise in his mother dialect only." 

Along with Latin grammar of the first stage (he 
does not discuss elementary instruction) are studied 
arithmetic and geometry. In the second stage agri- 
culture, physics, geography, natural history, botany, 
physiology, geology, anatomy, medicine, and land- 
surveying, not only modern but classical writers on 
most of these subjects being read. The readings in 
poetry were correlated with the above subjects. The 
third stage included ethics, economics, politics, the- 
ology, church history, Italian, Hebrew, Chaldee, 
Syriac, histories, heroic poems, elocutionary exer- 
cises based upon the study of tragedies and orations. 
In the fourth stage logic, rhetoric, poetics, composi- 
tion, and oratory. Throughout the course music was 
studied as a recreation, and there was to be plenty of 
physical exercise, fencing, wrestling, military drill, 
horseback riding. Travel in England and abroad was 
recommended. 

The subjects of this curriculum have been enumer- 
ated at length, for, impracticable though it seems, it 
served apparently as a model for the courses of in- 



^44 HISTORY Of COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

structlon in the Dissenters' ' academies ' ( Milton's 
proposed school was the first to bear this name) 
which soon after made their appearance in England 
and later in America. 

Locke. — The determination of the character and 
method of education upon rationalistic principles, i.e. 
through the exercise of reason and common sense 
alone, utterly disregarding tradition, is well illus- 
trated In the educational writings of John Locke, the 
great English philosopher. At the request of a 
friend he wrote a series of letters setting forth his 
views as to how the son of the latter might best be 
educated. These were afterwards revised and pub- 
lished under the title * Thoughts on Education.' 
Locke's views though narrow, considering as they 
did the needs only of the upper classes, were remark- 
able for their wholesome common sense and for their 
freedom from the influence of mere custom. 

The maintenance of good physical health is con- 
sidered to be the question of fundamental Importance 
In human education. Twenty-nine sections are de- 
voted to the discussion of such matters as clothing, 
diet, sleep. The hardening method is recommended. 
He urges " that children be not too warmly clad, 
winter or summer." " I will ... have his shoes 
so thin that they might leak and let in water, when- 
ever he comes near it." Through the following 117 
sections Locke discusses training in morals and man- 
ners. He emphasizes the importance of the forma- 
tion of habits and the influence of example. Locke's 
treatise differs from those just discussed In that Its 



ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL WRITERS 245 

subject is not school education in particular but rather 
education in all its aspects. Learning he considers of 
minor importance. " Seek out somebody that may- 
know how discreetly to frame his manners ; place him 
in his hands where you may, as much as possible 
secure his innocence, cherish and nurse up the good, 
and gently correct and weed out any bad inclinations 
and settle in him good habits. This is the main 
point, and this being provided for, learning may be 
had into the bargain, and that, as I think, at a very 
easy rate, by methods that may be thought on.'* 

The * methods ' which Locke refers to and which 
he proceeds to elaborate, consist mainly In giving the 
lesson exercises the character of games. The first 
reading lessons are carried on with the aid of cards 
and dice. Interest is to be maintained through the 
use of amusing pictures and entertaining reading 
matter. Latin Is to be learned by use In the manner 
recommended by Montaigne. There Is to be no 
drudgery with grammar. Learning Latin in this 
way " at the same time he might have his mind and 
manners formed, and he be Instructed to boot in sev- 
eral sciences, such as are a good part of geography, 
astronomy, chronology, anatomy, besides some parts 
of history, and all other parts of knowledge of things 
that fall under the senses and require little more than 
memory." Attention Is to be paid to the mastery of 
the mother tongue. " Since 'tis English that an Eng- 
lish gentleman will have constant use of, that Is the 
language he should chiefly cultivate." 

" Besides," continues Locke, " what Is to be had 



246 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

from study and books there are other accomplish- 
ments necessary for a gentleman, to be got by exer- 
cise." As the most Important of these he mentions 
dancing, music, fencing, riding, gardening, and work- 
ing In wood. 

The scope of Locke's view of education was deter- 
mined largely by the position he occupied as superin- 
tendent of the education of the sons of two succes- 
sive Earls of Shaftesbury. Like Montaigne and 
Milton he has In mind the children only of the upper 
classes. Nevertheless In his masterly yet plain and 
matter-of-fact discussion of the ends and alms of 
education he contributed much to the reform of 
courses of study and of methods In the schools. His 
influence, like that of Milton, was especially marked In 
the new class of schools, the academies, which social 
and religious conditions led the Dissenters to estab- 
lish In England and America. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE NON-CONFORMIST MOVEMENT 

IN ENGLAND: ITS INFLUENCE 

UPON EDUCATION 

Rise of the Academy. — The Puritans and the 
Separatists, the oppression of whom In England had 
led to the colonization of New England, were vic- 
torious In the Civil War, and were dominant through- 
out the period of the Commonwealth and the Protec- 
torate. But the reaction leading to and following 
upon the Restoration was religious as well as politi- 
cal. The state church regained its power and op- 
pressive laws were passed against Non-conformists. 
By the Act of Uniformity in 1662 clergymen and 
schoolmasters were required to assent to everything 
In the Book of Common Prayer. Upon refusing 
many hundreds lost their livings. At the same time 
Non-conformists were denied admission to the Eng- 
lish public schools and universities. The necessity 
thus laid upon them of providing some means of 
higher education of their youth for both lay and 
clerical careers led to the establishment of a new type 
of educational Institution. It was but natural that the 
new school should be modeled in some degree after 
the plan outlined by Milton, whom they considered 

5247 



248 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

as their co-religionist, in his * Tractate.' That such 
was the case is indicated by the fact that the name 
* Academy/ the union of the secondary school and 
the university in one institution and an encyclopedic 
curriculum are features common to Milton's ideal 
school and to the schools established by the Non- 
conformists. 

Cromwell had attempted to found a university with 
the confiscated property of the see of Durham. The 
project was nipped in the bud, however, by the 
Restoration. Richard Frankland, who had presided 
over the institution, opened a private school at Rath- 
mill near Giggleswick which may be considered the 
first of the Non-conformist academies. Others soon 
sprang up elsewhere. 

Being new institutions unburdened by tradition, the 
academies were better able than the grammar schools 
to give attention to mathematical, scientific, and other 
studies adapted to the needs of the times. The Mil- 
tonic comprehensiveness of the courses in some of 
these schools is illustrated in the case of an academy 
at Sherillhales in Shropshire kept by John Wood- 
house. Among the subjects taught by Mr. Wood- 
house were mathematics, natural philosophy, rhetoric, 
logic, ethics, anatomy, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Eng- 
lish, besides work introductory to law and theology. 

One of the most eminent of the earlier heads of 
these academies, the Rev. Charles Morton, emigrated 
to Massachusetts in 1685. His teaching was re- 
markable for the fact that he " read all his Lectures, 
gave all his Systems, whether Phylosophy or Divinity, 



NON-CONFORMIST MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND 249 

in English; had all his Declaimings in the English 
Tongue." 

Some of the most eminent men of the time were 
trained in these academies, among others even the 
two great Churchmen, Bishop Butler, author of the 
* Analogy of Religion,' and Thomas Seeker, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, also Matthew Henry, Joseph 
Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, and Isaac Watts, 
the great hymn writer. A poem addressed by the 
latter to Thomas Rowe, his former teacher in the 
academy at Newington, expresses the spirit of free- 
dom from the shackles of tradition which character- 
ized the new schools. 

" Custom, that tyranness of fools, 
That leads the learned round the schools 
In magic chains of forms and rules! 
My Genius storms her throne. 
No more, ye slaves, with awe profound 
Beat the dull track nor dance the round. 
Loose hands and quit the enchanted ground ; 
Knowledge invites us each alone." 

The following lines by the same writer refer 
vaguely to the cultivation of the natural sciences 
which distinguished the academies from the older 
grammar schools. 

" Swift I survey the globe around, 
Dive to the center through the solid ground, 
Or travel o'er the sky." 

Watts himself wrote a treatise on astronomy 
widely used in English and American academies, also 
a text-book on logic and a book called * The Improve- 
ment of the Mind.' 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE PIETISTIC MOVEMENT 

The somewhat extreme and exclusive cultivation 
of the reason during part of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries brought about a reaction known 
particularly in Germany as the Pietistic Movement. 
But while a reaction against the * Enlightenment ' so 
far as the latter implied neglect of religion, it was in 
some of its aspects in harmony with it, particularly In 
so far as it was a revolt against the merely formal 
religious life of the established churches. It de- 
manded that religion should be not merely a matter 
of doctrinal belief and of ceremonial observance but 
a personal experience, and that it should be brought 
Into intimate living connection with everyday life. 
To those participating in the movement, the welfare 
of the soul, the practice of the virtues in an upright, 
Christ-like life became the great central topics of 
thought. The religious emotions that had been so 
much neglected were again experienced with so much 
the greater intensity. The joy of communion with 
God, the realization of his favor and approval, were 
sources of happiness with which no others were to 
be compared. The aims of the schools established 
under the influence of this movement were predomi- 

250 



THE PIETISTIC MOVEMENT 25 1 

nantly religious. Here again the reaction went, as 
usual, to extremes. 

Francke. — ^August Francke (1663-1727), the 
leader of the movement in Germany, established 
schools for the very poor, the aim of which was " to 
lead the children to a living knowledge of God and 
Christ and to train them up to a thorough Chris- 
tianity." From three to four of the seven daily 
school hours were given to Instruction in religion. 
Much attention was given to prayer; not only teach- 
ers but pupils were required to pray " from the 
heart." Worldly pleasures were discouraged. There 
were no holidays. Play was forbidden to all the 
pupils. Teachers were to show the pupils " its vanity 
and foolishness and how through It their hearts were 
drawn away from God to the injury of their souls." 

Religious Revival in England and America, — The 
reaction against the prevalent formality and deadness 
of religious life manifested itself in England In the 
Methodist movement before the middle of the eight- 
eenth century. At about the same time a wave of 
religious revival known as the Great Awakening 
swept through the American colonies. The influ- 
ence of this religious movement upon school-work 
will be noted in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 

The Influences producing the changes in religious 
and Intellectual life which mark the eighteenth cen- 
tury in England and Europe were felt also in 
America/ In New England, indeed, there were 
additional forces operating to bring these changes 
about. Here the decay of religious life was hastened 
by the fact that under the semi-theocratic form of 
government the privileges of church membership 
were so great as to attract the unprincipled and the 
self-seeking as well as the sincere. Here, also, the 
concentration of the energies of the people upon the 
task of developing the resources of a new continent 
was an additional factor contributing to the growing 
Indifference toward the humanistic studies. 

As the grammar school, owing to the causes just 
mentioned, declined a new class of schools arose, 
modeled and named after the academies of England, 
and like them affording through their much broader 
curriculum an education better suited to the needs 
and tastes of the times. 

* On foreign influence, see Report Com, of Ed. , 97-98, Vol. I, 

p. 591. 

252 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 253 

Franklin. — As early as 1743 Benjamin Franklin 
had outlined a plan for an * English School.' The 
work prescribed for the first three classes was mainly 
that of the old reading school (see p. 212) , while the 
fourth, fifth, and sixth classes were to study the sub- 
jects customarily taught in the writing school, namely, 
penmanship, English composition, and mathematics. 
In addition to these, however, history, geography, 
rhetoric, natural philosophy, and English hterature 
were to be studied. The work centered about train- 
ing in speaking and writing the English language. 
The plan was thus for an institution of equal rank 
with the traditional grammar school in which Latin 
and Greek were to be replaced by the mother tongue 
and useful sciences. The plan was not acted upon 
until 1750, and then, in deference to the wishes of 
some of the contributors, it was modified so as to in- 
clude in addition to the English a Latin and a mathe- 
matical school. Systematic favoritism on the part 
of the directors for the second of these at the ex- 
pense of the other two called out a vigorous protest 
from Franklin in his old age. Finally the Latin 
School was incorporated with an advanced school of 
philosophy into a college, while the English School, 
called henceforth the academy, a name applied origi- 
nally to the three schools, assumed definitely a second- 
ary rank. Dr. Smith, the first Rector of the Latin 
School, in his * Account of the College and Academy 
of Philadelphia,' refers to the latter as follows: 
" The second branch is properly an English academy 
and consists of two parts; an English and writing 



254 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

school, and a school for the practical branches of the 
mathematics, drawing, etc." 

The influence of English models in determining the 
name and character of the American academy is 
traceable in the establishment of the earliest of these 
institutions by Samuel Phillips at Andover. He was 
an earnest student of the writings of Doddridge, 
Matthew Henry, and Watts, all famous teachers or 
students in English academies. With the establish- 
ment of another great academy at Exeter by John 
Phillips, an uncle of the founder of the Andover 
academy, the new institution may be considered as 
fairly launched in America. The name became popu- 
lar and was applied to a great variety of schools, 
private as well as public. 

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INSTRUCTION 

The meager opportunities for elementary school 
instruction among the early colonists have already 
been noted (p. 224). The schools were practically 
all private enterprises, supported usually by the fees 
paid by the pupils. 

Of the teachers of this time, Christopher Dock, a 
pious Mennonite who taught school among the Ger- 
man colonists of Pennsylvania, is believed to have 
exercised an important influence on colonial school- 
work. His ' Schul-Ordnung,' in which he sets forth 
his methods and aims, is probably the earliest book 
on school education published in America. His teach- 
ing activity centered about instruction in letters 
and numbers, religion and morals. Beginners were 



I 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 255 

taught their letters by the alphabetic method in the 
ABC or spelling class, from which they passed into 
the New Testament class. The monitorial system 
was emplo)^ed. " When I find that the little ones 
are good enough at their reading to be fit to read the 
Testament, I offer them to good Testament readers 
for Instruction." 

Notwithstanding the fact that the pupils were of 
different denominations much attention was paid to 
religious instruction. They were taught to pray and 
to sing hymns and psalms. Scriptural passages were 
not only read but their meaning was discussed. *' As 
it is the case that this thought is also expressed in 
other passages of Holy Writ these are found and 
read and then a hymn Is given containing the same 
teaching. If time remains all are given a short pas- 
sage of Scripture to learn." During the dinner hour, 
" as they are usually Inclined to misapply their time 
if one is not constantly with them, one or two of them 
must read a story of the Old Testament while I write 
copies for them." 

Frequent appeals to public opinion largely obviated 
the necessity of corporal punishment. " Those who 
know their lesson receive an * O ' on the hand. This 
is a mark of excellence. . . . Any one having failed 
in more than three trials a second time, is called 
' Lazy ' by the entire class, and his name is written 
down. . . . This denunciation of the child hurts 
more than if I were constantly to wield and flourish 
the rod." 

During twelve years Dock taught in the two town- 



256 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ships of Skippack and Sollford, three days weekly in 
each school. His utilization of correspondence as a 
means of education is one of various evidences of his 
originality and intelligence. ^' The pupils in Skip- 
pack, when I went to Sollford, gave me letters, and 
when I returned, the Sollford pupils did likewise. 
... I doubt not, if two schoolmasters . . . were 
to do this in love of God, it would bear fruit." 

Unfortunately the teachers of the time did not all 
possess the character and high ideals of Christopher 
Dock. Many of them were mere adventurers lead- 
ing a half-vagabond life. A writer on ^ Early Edu- 
cation in Georgia ' speaks of the itinerant teacher as 
" appearing during periods in rural communities, 
bringing in a red-spotted bandanna handkerchief his 
household goods, and in his tall, whitish-furred, long- 
experienced hat a sheet of foolscap, on which was set 
down what he called his * school articles.' . . . 
Within some months . . . with the same bandanna 
and hat, noiseless as he had come, he went his way. 
Generally he was unmarried, or, what was not so very 
far different, followed by a wife as unique-looking as 
himself." Owing to the lack of any system of cer- 
tificating teachers or of state control of schools, 
school-work in different communities was much more 
unequal even than it is to-day. 

Charity Schools. — It was during this period and 
in connection with the Pietistic movement in Europe 
that the great work of providing through charity 
schools for the education of the poor was inaugu- 
rated. Francke and many of his disciples established 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA ^SJ 

schools for the poor at the close of the seventeenth 
century (see p. 251). Even earlier than this schools 
for the secular and religious instruction of the poor 
had been established in Wales. A similar work was 
carried on in France under the leadership of La Salle. 
(The difficulties which he encountered led to the es- 
tablishment of a Seminary for Schoolmasters which 
may be considered the first normal school.) Indeed 
" during the last quarter of the seventeenth and the 
first quarter of the eighteenth century there was ex- 
hibited an activity in relation to the education of the 
poor which . . . may be regarded as little else 
than extraordinary." In 1699 the English Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge resolved " to 
further promote that good design of erecting Cate- 
chetical schools In each parish in and about London." 
The first parochial charity schools were opened in 
1702. There are indications that this charity school 
movement spread to America along with the religious 
movement with which It was connected. In 1740 
a building was erected In Philadelphia to accommo- 
date the audiences of the great English evangelist and 
preacher, Whitefield, and also a charity school. 

Sunday Schools, — It was this general interest In 
providing school instruction for the poor that led to 
the establishment of Sunday schools In England. 
The Instruction was secular as well as religious. 
Under this plan the pupils were enabled to attend 
school and at the same time earn their living by their 
labor on week-days. The first school of this sort to 
attract general attention was established by Robert 



25^ HISTORY 01" COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Ralkes in Gloucester. This Institution was intro- 
duced into America. By some the schools were de- 
nounced as Sabbath-breakers. In 1791 Dr. Rush 
organized ' The First Day or Sunday School Society 
of Philadelphia.' In the preceding year the Metho- 
dist and the Universalist conferences at Philadelphia 
had recommended that churches open schools where 
on Sunday children could learn to read, write, cipher, 
and sing psalms. In 1794 Mr. Peter Colt of Pater- 
son, N. J., was " authorized to employ a schoolmas- 
ter to teach the children of the factory on Sundays " 
at a compensation of " ten shillings a week." 

RECOGNITION OF RELATION BETWEEN UNIVERSAL SCHOOL 
EDUCATION AND POLITICAL FREEDOM 

Although these early attempts to disseminate the 
benefits of school instruction proved inadequate and 
aroused interest, as a rule, only in the larger centers 
of education, yet the far-seeing statesmen and thinkers 
of the time were clearly alive to the peculiar im- 
portance of universal school education to the welfare 
of the rapidly developing commonwealths of Amer- 
ica. John Adams returns to the subject again and 
again; "Liberty," he writes, "must at all hazards 
be supported . . . and liberty cannot be preserved 
without a general knowledge among the people. 
. . ." The preservation of the means of knowledge 
among the lowest ranks Is of more importance to the 
public than all the property of all the rich men In 
the country." He foresees the necessity of something 
like our present state systems of school education. 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 159 

" The instruction of the people in every kind of 
knowledge that can be of use to them in the practice 
of their moral duties as men, citizens, and Christians, 
and of their political and civil duties as members of 
society and freemen, ought to be the care of the 
pubhc, and of all who have any share in the conduct 
of its affairs, in a manner that never yet has been 
practised in any age or nation. The education here 
Intended is not merely that of the children of the 
rich and noble, but of every rank and class of people, 
down to the lowest and the poorest. It is not too 
much to say that schools for the education of alt 
should be placed at convenient distances and main- 
tained at public expense.'* *' The whole people must 
take upon themselves the education of the whole 
people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. 
There should not be a district of one mile square 
without a school in it, not founded by a charitable 
individual, but maintained at the expense of the people 
themselves." '^ 

Jefferson strove energetically to bring about the es- 
tablishment of a state system of schools in Virginia. 
Referring to a proposed law he writes, " But of all 
the views of this law none is more important, none Is 
more legitimate than those of rendering the people 
the safe, as they are the ultimate guardians of their 
own liberty. . . . The people themselves, there- 
fore, are Its only safe depositories. And to render 
even them safe their minds must be Improved to a 
certain degree." 

On the peculiar importance of universal education 



26o HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

to a people under a republican form of government 
Madison is no less emphatic. " A popular Govern- 
ment without popular information or the means of 
acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; 
or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern 
ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own 
governors must arm themselves with the power which 
knowledge gives." 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE NATURALISTIC MOVEMENT. 
ROUSSEAU 

The views of most eminent thinkers of this period 
upon education, as well as upon other social and po- 
litical questions, were influenced more or less by the 
French writer Rousseau. 

If the religious Indifference of the Enlightenment 
led to the reaction represented by the Pietistic move- 
ment, its excessive regard for form, the repression 
of the emotional impulses, the unquestioning faith in 
reason as the one guide to truth and happiness, the 
artificiality and conventionality of the period led to a 
reaction In favor of simplicity and naturalness far- 
reaching in Its influence upon the political and social 
life of the time. Especially marked was Its Influ- 
ence upon educational thought, for then, as ever, con- 
ventionality and conservatism were nowhere more 
marked than in the schools. The great preacher of 
this movement, Jean Jacques Rousseau, he who ad- 
vocated the application of its principles to the polit- 
ical and social life of the time, was the author of a 
treatise on education called ' Emile,' perhaps the 
most brilliant and entertaining that has ever been 
written. The keynote of the treatise Is given In the 
opening paragraph. 

261 



262 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

** Everything is good as it comes from the hands 
of the Author of Nature ; but everything degenerates 
in the hands of man. He forces one country to 
nourish the productions of another; one tree to bear 
the fruits of another. He mingles and confounds 
the climates, the elements, the seasons; he mutilates 
his dog, his horse, and his slave ; he overturns every- 
thing, disfigures everything; he loves deformity, 
monsters; he will have nothing as Nature made it, 
not even man; like a saddle-horse, man must be 
trained for man's service — he must be made over 
according to his fancy, like a tree In his garden." 

As even these few lines show, the work was written 
under the impulse of the feelings rather than of the 
reason. Impetuosity of style, exaggeration, para- 
dox, Inconsistency characterize the work throughout. 
Everything artificial and conventional is to be 
avoided, and the child is to be brought into close 
contact with nature; no swaddling clothes, go-carts, 
nor toys, but fruits and flowers. From five to twelve 
the training Is to be almost exclusively that of the 
muscles and the sense-organs. The sense-training, 
however, extends to the study of music, drawing, and 
geometry, all taken up inductively. / For myself, I 
do not profess to teach geometry to jimile, but it Is 
he who will teach It to me." FresF air, freedom of 
movement, knowledge of his powers and of their 
limitations through actual experience with nature are 
the great desiderata. No training in formal polite- 
ness, no commands, no books, no verbal lessons are 
given, for these are artificial rather than natural. 



THE NATURALISTIC MOVEMENT 263 

Nature is to be the teacher, and the teacher Is to be 
little more than a pedagogue in the original sense of 
the term. The important matter during this period 
is '* not to gain time but to lose it. . . . If you 
could bring your pupil sound and robust to the age 
of twelve years without his being able to distinguish 
his right hand from his left, from your very first les- 
sons the eyes of his understanding would be open to 
reason." 

By the age of twelve, according to Rousseau, the 
child's strength exceeds his needs and desires, and 
the surplus may be employed in intellectual educa- 
tion. This is to be limited to those subjects for 
which man has a natural taste and which are use- 
ful. The pupil is to acquire knowledge for him- 
self, " is not to learn science, but to discover It." 
In the study of objects through direct observation 
and experiment the body is to be employed as well 
as the mind. Each pupil is to learn an honorable 
trade. Much attention is paid to the training of the 
judgment through leading the pupil to decide mat- 
ters for himself. Certain subjects are to be passed 
by altogether. " He does not know the name of 
history, nor wha metaphysics and ethics are." Ac- 
cording to Rousseau, the individual in his growth 
passes abruptly fijm one definite period of devel- 
opment to another. Physical development begins at 
five, intellectual at twelve, and moral at fifteen. 

Few writings have aroused so immediate and wide- 
spread an interest as did those of Rousseau. On so- 
cial and political as ' ell as educational questions he 



264 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

voiced a revolt that had slowly but surely been gath- 
ering strength in the minds of the thinking classes 
against the superficial formality, the narrow and one- 
sided intellectualism of the times. 

Among the other artificial features of the age 
passionately denounced by Rousseau was the sharp 
contrast between the conditions in which the different 
classes of society lived. This was especially marked 
in France. On the one hand the boundless luxury 
and privilege of the nobility; on the other, the toil, 
the poverty, and the oppressive taxation of the peas- 
antry. 

INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS UPON SCHOOL 
EDUCATION 

In Rousseau's attack upon artificial class distinc- 
tions we note an early indication of those great move- 
ments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
which were to place the supreme power in the hands 
of the common people, and thus make indispensable 
the establishment of universal school education. The 
tendency toward a more natural state of society, 
toward a recognition of the natural rights of men, 
found expression not only in the writings of Rous- 
seau, but later in great political upheavals, such as 
the American and the French revolutions. These 
great events are of the highest importance in the 
history of public school education. Through the 
successful assertion of the rights of men as men they 
brought forward the laboring classes, which had hith- 
erto possessed no direct political power. Thus they 



THE NATURALISTIC MOVEMENT 265 

greatly extended the need of education. The founda- 
tion of the new and great democracies In America, 
England, and France brought to the front the great 
problem of making possible the government of the 
people by the people, and thus made public education 
a question of grave national importance. The 
Fathers of the American Republic, as we have seen 
(see pp. 258-260), were clearly aware of the special 
Importance of general education to the new nation 
whose ways they were seeking to establish. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

PESTALOZZI: HIS LIFE, ITS CIRCUM- 
STANCES AND ITS AIMS 

It was at this juncture, when the placing of gov- 
ernment In the hands of the masses had made uni- 
versal school education Imperative, that the apostle 
of common school education appeared In the person 
of Pestalozzl. 

Hitherto schools had been looked upon as Insti- 
tutions existing mainly for the middle and upper 
classes. Courses of study were planned and treatises 
on education were written in view of the needs only 
of the few. Even so democratic a writer as Rous- 
seau had recently written : " The poor man has no 
need of an education, for his station In life forces 
one upon him, and he could receive no other." 

The oppressed and downtrodden condition of the 
Swiss peasantry aroused the compassion of Pesta- 
lozzl, and the amelioration of their lot became the 
aim of his life. Born In Zurich, where he was left 
fatherless at an early age, his vacations were passed 
with his maternal grandfather, a village pastor. The 
penury and hardships which he witnessed In accom- 
panying his grandfather on his rounds left an Indel- 
ible Impression on his mind. During his college 
course in his native city his enthusiasm for the cause 

266 



I 



PESTALOZZI 267 

of the oppressed and the poor was Intensified through 
association with kindred spirits. It was probably In 
the pursuit of this great aim of his life that he made 
unsuccessful attempts to establish himself in the pro- 
fessions of the law and of the Christian ministry. 
Possibly the same purpose had some Influence in lead- 
ing him to engage In agriculture. Meeting with re- 
verses and failure in this enterprise, Pestalozzi turned 
directly to the work that lay ever nearest his heart, 
the Improvement of the condition of the poor. In 
his large but only half-completed farmhouse he estab- 
lished a sort of industrial Institution for waifs and 
orphans. After a somewhat precarious existence for 
six years this too proved a failure. The next period of 
Pestalozzi's life from 1780 to 1798 was passed In ex- 
treme poverty and distress. During these years he con- 
tinued to brood over the same problem. One product 
of this period, the story, * Leonard and Gertrude,' 
shows not only how thoroughly he understood and 
sympathized with the people whose condition he was 
trying to Improve, but It indicates the means by 
which, in his opinion, this Improvement was to be 
accomplished, namely, through Intelligent home and 
school education. 

Stanz. — In 1798 the new revolutionary govern- 
ment found It necessary to establish quickly an asylum 
at Stanz to care for the orphans of those who had 
fallen In resisting Its authority. Pestalozzi, with his 
cherished aim In view of improving the condition of 
the poor through education, eagerly undertook the 
rnanagement of the Institution, setting aside offers of 



268 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

more remunerative and less difficult positions. Thus 
began a period of educational activity which ter- 
minated only with his death. 

The character of his work and the spirit with 
which it was carried on are best indicated in his own 
words : 

" I was still without everything but money when 
the children arrived ; neither kitchen, rooms, nor beds 
were ready to receive them. At first this was a 
source of Inconceivable confusion. . . . Most of 
the children on their arrival were very degenerated 
specimens of humanity. Many of them had a sort 
of chronic skin disease, which almost prevented their 
walking, or sores on their heads, or rags full of ver- 
min; many were almost skeletons with ragged, care- 
worn faces, and shrinking looks ; some brazen, accus- 
tomed to begging, hypocrisy, and all sorts of deceit; 
others broken by misfortune, patient, suspicious, 
timid, and entirely devoid of affection. . . . 

" We wept and smiled together. They forgot the 
world and Stanz ; they knew only that they were with 
me and I with them. We shared our food and 
drink. I had neither family, friends, nor servants; 
nothing but them. I was with them in sickness and 
in health and when they slept. I was the last to go 
to bed and the first to get up. In the bedroom I 
prayed with them, and, at their own request, taught 
them until they fell asleep." 

Burgdorf, Yverdun, — The government was soon 
forced to close the institution temporarily. When it 
reopened Pestalozzi was not reinstated. Neverthe- 



PESTALOZZI 269 

less, his brief experience at Stanz not only confirmed 
his faith in education as a means of elevating the 
condition of the lower classes, but it intensified his in- 
terest in the problem of the nature, the aims, and the 
methods of elementary school-work. With some dif- 
ficulty he secured the privilege of pursuing his Inves- 
tigations and experiments in the schools of Burgdorf. 
Here his enthusiasm and unselfish devotion, as well 
as the originality and soundness of his educational 
doctrines, attracted public attention and drew to his 
side a number of able and earnest assistants. The 
school developed into a training school for teachers. 
The government needing the castle the use of which 
they had granted to Pestalozzi, he removed the 
school to Yverdun. Here for a while it flourished 
and became an institution of international fame. 
Lack of wise and strong supervision and dissensions 
among the teachers weakened It, however, and led 
ultimately to Its dissolution. Soon after Pestalozzi 
died. 

THE NATURE OF PESTALOZZI^S SERVICES TO THE CAUSE OF 
SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Pestalozzi, notwithstanding his deficiencies as a 
thinker, as a teacher, and as an administrator, occu- 
pies in the history of non-professional school educa- 
tion a position of commanding importance. His life 
marks the beginning of the great modern era in ele- 
mentary school-work. Hitherto liberal school edu- 
cation had been a privilege restricted mainly to the 
upper classes. But the growing recognition of the 



270 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

rights of men as men, as expressed in the American 
and French revolutions, resulted in placing supreme 
power in the hands of the common people. This 
made universal school education so important and 
so indispensable that its maintenance and direction 
became more and more a great function of the state. 
Side by side with this rise in the political status of the 
laboring classes, and in part because of it, there went 
on a movement for their social and economic better- 
ment. It was into this great movement that Pesta- 
lozzi threw himself with singular enthusiasm and 
fixity of purpose. Early convinced that education 
was the only means of elevating the condition of the 
poor, he entered into the work of applying it and 
adapting it to their own needs with characteristic 
whole-heartedness and persistency. The problem 
which he faced was practically a new one. Mon- 
taigne, Milton, and Locke discussed the educational 
needs only of their own class. Where the reformers 
had made elementary and intermediate school-work 
their chief concern, they had in mind chiefly the mid- 
dle and upper classes, and their work consisted 
mainly in modifying and supplementing the tradi- 
tional classical curriculum so as to make it more ade- 
quate to the attainment of the purposes, social, re- 
ligious, or otherwise, which they had in mind. This 
holds true of Ratke and even of Comenius. 

Pestalozzi approached the problem from a quite 
different standpoint. He was concerned primarily 
with the needs of the poor, those hitherto neglected 
by educational reformers or thought of only sec- 



PESTALOZZI 271 

ondarily. His task was, therefore, not the modifica- 
tion of the traditional course of study, but that of 
outlining a course of instruction and training that 
would most contribute to the improvement, intellec- 
tual, moral, and physical, of the lower classes. 

Such a problem led at once to the investigation of 
the fundamental principles of education. The exist- 
ing schools for the classes had their venerable and 
firmly rooted traditions to guide them. With Pesta- 
lozzi seeking to utilize school and home education 
in the attainment of his great aim, both matter and 
method were yet to be found. 



PESTALOZZI S VIEWS AS TO THE NATURE AND METHOD OF 
EDUCATION 

The capacities essential to intelligent, upright, 
and happy life he believed to lie innate in every hu- 
man being. It was the task of education to unfold 
these. True education is a process of natural devel- 
opment like the growth of a tree. The exercise nec- 
essary to the unfolding of these innate capacities is 
afforded through interaction with one's ordinary en- 
vironment. Hence the character of the pupil's In- 
struction and training was to be determined by his 
needs in the condition of life In which he was placed. 

The home was the educational institution which 
occupied the first place in the mind of Pesta- 
lozzi. The school was only supplementary. True 
education being a natural process, the method of In- 
struction must be adapted to the nature of the child, 



272 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

and the exercises and studies must follow a natural 
and necessary order. 

In place of exclusive occupation with printed 
words, things themselves were to be studied through 
direct observation. Knowledge was to be acquired 
through the child's own activity. Sense perception 
was recognized as the great medium for^the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge. Concrete objects rather than 
abstractions were studied. Though we learn through 
sense perception, what we learn is made available for 
use in the form of language. Hence exercises in 
language were considered an important part of 
school-work. 

Along with these principles, the application of 
which has done so much to further the cause of 
school education, Pestalozzi advanced others which 
time has shown to be erroneous. In his attempt to 
suit instruction to the mind, he attached undue im- 
portance to the elements of number and form. 
Through his overestimation of the educational func- 
tions of the home he made the latter too much like a 
school and the school too much like the home. 

INFLUENCE OF HIS WORK IN EUROPE 

Pestalozzi's theories were first put into practice on 
an extensive scale in Germany. Here the interest in 
elementary school education, which was in part a 
product of the Pietistic movement, but which had de- 
clined, sprang suddenly into vigorous life in the 
struggle of the nation to free itself from the domina- 
tion of Napoleon. Like Athens of old, Germany 



PESTALOZZI 273 

sought the recovery of her prestige and solace for her 
military misfortunes in triumphs in the fields of intel- 
lectual achievement. And she wisely judged that 
an Intelligent and enlightened people could best 
achieve and maintain political independence. Under 
the leadership of Fichte and others, a vigorous move- 
ment for retrieving the national misfortunes through 
general education was Inaugurated. Teachers were 
sent to Pestalozzi's school at Yverdun to learn his 
principles and their application. 



Pestalozzi's Ideas were adopted more slowly In 
France and England. They were Introduced Into 
the United States in a variety of ways. One of the 
first Americans to become interested In Pestalozzi's 
work at Yverdun was William Maclure, a philan- 
thropist of Philadelphia. Pestalozzi being unwill- 
ing to come to America, Maclure In 1806 made a 
contract with Joseph Neef, one of the earliest of 
Pestalozzi's assistants and disciples, guaranteeing 
his traveling expenses and his salary for three years. 
For some years Neef conducted a school in and about 
Philadelphia. Toward the close of his life he had 
charge of the school of the New Harmony com- 
munity In Indiana. Reports on Pestalozzi's work 
by various American travelers and translations or 
discussions of Pestalozzlan writings were not Infre- 
quent. But the times were not yet ripe for the wide- 
spread adoption of Pestalozzlan practice in America. 
It was not until the third or fourth decade of the 



274 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

nineteenth century that the people of New England 
began to realize the necessary connection existing 
between democratic government and universal educa- 
tion, so much emphasized by Adams, Jefferson, Mad- 
ison, and other founders of the republic (see pp. 
258-260). This resulted in a wider interest in the 
theories and the practice of Pestalozzi. A vigorous 
movement for the improvement of school-work in 
Oswego led to the engagement in 1861 of Margaret 
Jones, of London, who was to instruct in Pesta- 
lozzian principles and methods. Her place was 
taken the following year by Herman Kriisi, the son 
of one of the ablest of Pestalozzi's teachers. 

The emphasis laid by Pestalozzi upon the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge through the senses led to the de- 
velopment in England of school exercises known as 
* object-lessons,' in which the pupils were led to note 
the various qualities of objects presented to them. 
In many instances these exercises became as mechan- 
ical and as mind-benumbing as anything which Pes- 
talozzian methods had displaced. They were a fea- 
ture of Pestalozzian instruction when it first ob- 
tained a wide vogue in America. 

Notwithstanding these errors, the underlying 
truth of the Pestalozzian method, namely, the supe- 
rior efficacy of instruction based upon direct observa- 
tion and adapted to the needs, the circumstances, and 
the capacities of the child, was not lost sight of. Its 
application greatly improved the character of school- 
work particularly in primary arithmetic, geography, 
and nature study. 



STATE SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 279 

ligion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to 
good government and the happiness of mankind, 
schools and the means of education shall forever be 
encouraged." The clause of this ordinance setting 
aside lands for the maintenance of schools was in- 
serted in the acts creating the various states formed 
within not only the Northwest Territory but also the 
territories later acquired through purchase or con- 
quest. Since 1853 the amount of land the Federal 
Government has granted for school purposes to the 
various states as they were created has been doubled, 
two sections, 16 and 36, being set aside for this pur- 
pose. In all, 67,893,919 acres have been devoted 
In this way to the establishment of a fund for the 
maintenance of public schools. 

The successive constitutions of the various states 
show by what slow and painful steps the legislators 
arrived at a knowledge of effective methods of ap- 
plying to the purposes of universal education the ap- 
propriations made by the Federal and the state gov- 
ernments. In many instances, as has already been 
noted, state aid was afforded In such a way as to mark 
the poor as objects of charity, all who were able 
being required to pay fees. The constitutions 
adopted from 1835 ^^ 1850 manifest the Influence 
of the educational Renaissance which characterized 
that period. From the middle of this period on pro- 
vision is made in a steadily Increasing number of 
states for the adequate support, by state and local 
taxation, of schools free to all, rich and poor alike. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

DEVELOPMENT OF FREE SECONDARY 
AND ADVANCED EDUCATION 

The High School, — This establishment of free ele- 
mentary schools, more or less supported and super- 
vised by the state, made practicable universal edu- 
cation. The consequent development of elementary 
school-work soon wrought a change in the character 
of secondary schools. The academies, the successors 
of the classical grammar schools, were in the main pri- 
vate institutions supported wholly or in part by fees. 
Hence their students came for the most part from 
the wealthier classes, and the school-work aimed 
chiefly at the preparation of these for college. The 
extension of elementary school instruction, particu- 
larly among the poorer classes, created a demand for 
secondary schools, free and tax-supported like the 
elementary schools, but affording such advanced in- 
struction as would meet the needs of that large pro- 
portion of the people who would never obtain a col- 
lege education. It was in response to this demand 
that the high school came into existence. The vig- 
orous growth of this institution has largely displaced 
the older academy, and has made it incumbent upon 
the newer school not only to afford such non-pro- 
fessional Instruction as will meet the needs of the 

SiSo 



SECONDARY AND ADVANCED EDUCATION 281 

mass of the people but to serve as a preparatory 
school for colleges and universities. The difficulty 
of adapting high school courses to these two ends has 
been much lessened through changes in the entrance 
requirements of higher institutions of learning. 

Like other great institutions, the high school came 
into existence by steps so gradual that its origin can 
be referred to no year or even decade. Certain 
states, such as Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, and 
California, provided by law for the establishment of 
high schools in the 40's and 50's. In other states 
provision was made by school boards for public sec- 
ondary education without waiting for explicit legis- 
lation on the subject. Their right to do this was 
tested in me famous Kalamazoo School case, in which 
certain citizens applied to the courts to restrain the 
collection of such portion of the taxes assessed 
against the complainants for the year 1872 as was 
voted for the support of the high school in that vil- 
lage, and for the salary of the superintendent. The 
court supported the action of the board of education. 
In the judicial opinion upon this question, the eminent 
jurist, Thomas Cooley, states: " We supposed it had 
always been understood in this state [Michigan] 
that education, not merely in the rudiments but in 
an enlarged sense, was regarded as an important 
practical advantage to be supplied at their option to 
rich and poor alike, and not as something pertain- 
ing merely to culture and accomplishment to be 
brought as such within the reach of those whose 
accumulated wealth enabled them to pay for it." 



282 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

State Universities. — The idea of a complete sys- 
tem of schools, provided by the state and including 
at one extreme the primary school and at the other 
the university, was realized through the establish- 
ment in nearly all of the younger states of state uni- 
versities, supported by the state, and affording tuition 
to residents either gratis or at a nominal charge. 



i 



CHAPTER XXIX 

IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL 
PROCEDURE IN SCHOOLS 

Froehel. — The work of Pestalozzi in making pub- 
lic school-work more efficient by placing it upon a 
sound and rational basis was continued through the 
efforts of two great educational geniuses, Froebel and 
Herbart, each of whom came in early life under the 
direct personal influence of the older reformer. 

Froebel's influence is perhaps most manifest in 
the prevalence in America and elsewhere of the Kin- 
dergarten. The name, an English translation of 
which has unfortunately not come into general use, 
well indicates the distinguishing characteristics of the 
institution. Several of the important educational 
principles carried out in kindergarten work have been 
applied in and have increased the efficiency of ele- 
mentary and higher school work. 

Froebel was born in 1782 in the picturesque 
Thuringian forest. Neglected by his father, a 
Lutheran clergyman, and by his stepmother, and de- 
riving little or no benefit from the schools he at- 
tended, Froebel was apprenticed to a forester. Left 
much to himself with a considerable library in 
the lonely forester's cottage, he here developed, no 
doubt, that love of nature and that tendency to mys- 

283 



284 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ticism and to metaphysical speculation which later 
distinguished him as a thinker and writer. Later a 
year or so of rather desultory work at the University 
of Jena was followed by employment in various cler- 
ical positions in the civil service and on private 
estates. In 1805 he went to Frankfort to fit him- 
self for the profession of architect. Here he became 
acquainted with Dr. Griiner, an eminent Pestalozzian 
and headmaster of the Frankfort Model School. 
Persuaded by Griiner to accept a position as teacher, 
he felt that he had finally found a calling for which 
his talents fitted him. Writing to his brother of his 
first lesson he says : "It seemed as if I had found some- 
thing I had never known, but always longed for, 
always missed : as if my life had at last discovered its 
native element. I felt as happy as a fish in the water." 
Two years of successful work confirmed this view and 
made Froebel an ardent and diligent student of the 
whole problem of human education. To better fit 
himself for his life work he spent two years as stu- 
dent and tutor In and about Pestalozzi's school at 
Yverdun. With the same purpose in view he con- 
tinued his interrupted academic education at Gottln- 
gen and Berlin. During a year of service as a volun- 
teer in the struggle against Napoleon, Froebel fell 
in with two kindred spirits, MIddendorf and Lange- 
thal. Soon after the closing of the war the waxing 
enthusiasm of these three In the cause of education 
found vent in the establishment of a school at Keil- 
hau. After some initial difficulties the school proved 
a success, at first educationally and afterwards, under 



IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL PROCEDURE 285 

the management of Barop, financially. In 1832 
Froebel established a similar Institution at WilHsau 
in Switzerland. Three years later he was made 
director of the orphanage at Burgdorf, which thirty 
years before had been the scene of Pestalozzl's la- 
bors. Here the difficulties encountered in Instructing 
the children entering the school led Froebel to notice 
defects in the home education, and stimulated his 
Interest in the problem of the training of children 
under school age. This problem cam^e more and 
more to monopolize his attention. His endeavor to 
solve It Issued finally In the establishment at Blanken- 
burg In 1840 of the first kindergarten. The remain- 
der of his life was devoted mainly to lectures upon 
the principles of kindergarten work and to the train- 
ing of teachers (chiefly women) for the work. 

Froebel's educational and metaphysical doctrines 
are so Interwoven that It is scarcely possible to give 
the merest sketch of the former without some refer- 
ence to the latter. 

According to Froebel there lives and reigns In all 
things an eternal law ('Ed. of Man,' §1). This 
law Is based upon an omnipresent, self-conscious 
unity, God, who lives and reigns In all things. The 
essence of each thing Is this divine effluence within 
it. It Is the destiny and life-work of everything to 
reveal Its essence. I.e. God, in Its external and tran- 
sient being. The aim of human education is to en- 
able man to do this and to raise man into free, con- 
scious obedience to this divine principle within him- 
(§5). Man exists In a state of continuous devel- 



286 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

ment (§i6). In order that each human being 
may understand the past and present he must pass 
through all preceding phases of human development 
and culture. Development is the result of exercise, 
not, however, of any exercise, but only of such as is 
adapted to the nature of the organism to be devel- 
oped. Hence, in order to select exercises truly edu- 
cative for the child we must first ascertain the char- 
acteristics of child nature. In his determination of 
these Froebel manifests keen insight. Among them 
are sense activity, physical activity, fondness for con- 
struction, ownership, society, variety, tendency to 
imitate, activity of the imagination. In his kinder- 
garten system Froebel affords abundant exercise to 
each of these tendencies. 

Much of what is most valuable in the Froebelian 
doctrine is implied in his three principles of self- 
activity, connectedness, and continuity. 

Activity, exercise, we have just noted, must be 
adapted to the child's nature. Further than this it 
must be spontaneous, it must spring from within, and 
it must be that of the whole mind. School education 
must not as in the past exercise merely the memory 
and the intellect. It must stimulate also the emotions 
and the will. The mind must be active not simply 
in the way of receiving impressions, " making the 
outer world inner," but it must be active likewise in 
expression, " making the inner world outer." The 
importance Froebel attached to this point led him to 
recount the various natural means of expression, — 
speech (oral and written), song, movement, gesture, 



IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL PROCEDURE 287 

construction, and drawing. Of these the schools up 
to this time had used for the most part only one, 
namely, speech. His influence has contributed to 
the utilization of the others not only in kindergartens 
but in elementary and higher schools as well. 

Play, Froebel considered a form of activity of 
peculiar educational efficiency, it being '* a representa- 
tion of the inner from inner impulse." Kindergarten 
exercises are in the main attempts to make more edu- 
cative the play activities without making them less 
interesting. The principle of connectedness is of 
scarcely less importance. The knowledge the child 
naturally acquires of the world about him out of 
school constitutes a connected whole ; it is not chopped 
up into parts. In school for purposes of effective 
study knowledge is broken up into separate sub- 
jects. This must not be allowed to obscure in the 
child's mind the fact that the world is a unity. He 
must be led to see the connectedness of things. What 
is learned in one subject must be connected in as many 
ways as possible with what is learned in another. 
" The essential business of the school," says Froebel, 
" is not so much to teach ... a variety and mul- 
tiplicity of things as it is to give prominence to the 
ever-living unity that is in all things " (* Ed. of Man,' 

In his principle of continuity Froebel contradicts 
the view of Rousseau that the course of individual 
human development consists of a few stages, entrance 
into each of which is marked by abrupt changes. It 
consists on the contrary of steady, gradual change. 



288 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

It Is unbroken, continuous. Each stage grows nat- 
urally out of the preceding. Since exercise must ever 
be suited to the nature of the child, it follows that 
there must be continuity in the course of study and 
training corresponding to the continuity in the course 
of development. There must be no sudden breaks. 
The entire course must be continuous, unbroken. 

The first American kindergartens were established 
In Boston through the efforts of Mrs. Elizabeth Pea- 
body, who visited Germany for the purpose of study- 
ing them In 1867. In 1872, Mrs. Boelte, who had 
studied In Germany with the widow of Froebel, 
opened a kindergarten In New York. Kindergar- 
tens were first incorporated In a public school system 
in St. Louis under the superintendency of Dr. W. T. 
Harris in 1873. In 190 1 there were 5107 public 
and private kindergartens In the United States. But, 
as already noted, the Influence of Froebel's doctrines 
upon American education has extended far beyond 
the confines of the kindergarten. 

Herhart. — ^Another educational writer who has ex- 
erted a powerful Influence upon modern school-work 
is John Frederick Herbart. Like Froebel, he be- 
came as a young man deeply Interested in the educa- 
tional reforms of Pestalozzl. He left the Univer- 
sity of Jena to become tutor in the family of the Gov- 
ernor of Interlaken In Switzerland. Here he be- 
came deeply Interested In certain problems connected 
with the Instruction of the young. In 1799 he visited 
Pestalozzi's school at Burgdorf . Among the earliest 
of his educational writings are two discussions of 



IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL PROCEDURE 289 

Pestalozzi's views. They are entitled * Pestalozzi's 
Recent Work — How Gertrude Taught her Chil- 
dren/ and * Pestalozzi's Idea of an A, B, C of Ob- 
servation.' After a few years of preparation at 
Bremen and at Gottingen for an academic career, 
Herbart was appointed to the chair of philosophy at 
the University of Konigsberg, made famous by Kant. 
Happily the duties of the position included the de- 
livery of lectures on education. Into this phase of 
his work Herbart entered with singular enthusiasm 
and originality. He established an educational 
* Seminar/ and in connection with it a practice school. 
One of his pupils established a similar institution in 
connection with the University of Jena, which has 
ever since remained the chief center for the develop- 
ment, application, and dissemination of Herbartlan 
doctrines. 

Herbart's system is distinguished from others In 
its scientific completeness. It Is he who first raised 
the study of education to the rank of a science. 

In seeking to determine the aim of education we 
must, according to Herbart, call to our aid the science 
of ethics. This teaches, he finds, that the only thing 
which is good in itself is the will. The highest con- 
ceivable object in life Is the development of a good 
will. This, then, Is the single, ultimate end of edu- 
cation. 

The method to be followed In the attainment of 
this end depends, of course, upon the nature of the 
will and of the mind as a whole. Hence to find it 
we must have recourse to psychology. One of Her- 



290 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

bart's great contributions to psychological thought 
was the doctrine that the hiind is not tri-partite, made 
up of intellect, feeling, and will, but that it is a unity, 
the three great phases of the activity of which are 
designated by the above names. 

The mind, according to Herbart, develops pri- 
marily through apperception, that is, through the 
assimilation of new ideas by ideas already in the 
mind. In order to teach a child we must know some- 
thing of the contents of its mind, so that these may 
be brought into relation with the new ideas or im- 
pressions to be presented. 

The character and relations of the ideas possessed 
by the mind determine the will. But ideas issue in 
acts of will only as they become suffused with feeling, 
i.e. in proportion as they arouse interest. Hence it 
Is all-important in education that the interest should 
be aroused. A good will, in brief, is the aim of edu- 
cation. A good will issues from good ideas prop- 
erly interrelated, or apperceived and suffused with 
feeling, that is, with interest. Apperception and in- 
terest are thus of primary importance in education. 
Hence Herbart was led to make a classification of our 
interests. They are, he finds, of two classes, — (a) 
those arising from knowledge, (b) those arising 
from intercourse with others. We may be interested 
in objects of knowledge in three ways: first, because 
of the feeling of novelty, of variety, which the object 
affords; secondly, because of the causal relations of 
the object; thirdly, because of its beauty. Herbart 
designates these as the empirical, speculative, and 



IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATIONAL PROCEDURE 29 1 

esthetic interests respectively. The interests arising 
from our intercourse with others are likewise of three 
classes : first, the interest awakened by the good or ill- 
fortune of other individuals, the sympathetic inter- 
est; secondly, the social interest or that taken in cer- 
tain groups, such as the family, the social circle, the 
fraternity, the community, the nation ; thirdly, the re- 
ligious interest or that in the origin and fate of man. 

Not only should these interests be developed, but 
they should be developed in due proportion. Exclu- 
sive attention to any one or two of these results in a 
one-sided, unbalanced character. The development 
not merely of interest, but of many-sided interest, is 
the goal of the educator. 

Much of Pestalozzi's influence was due to the fact 
that he worked through and upon the emotions. 
This perhaps was necessary to give the movement for 
popular education a powerful initial impulse. It re- 
mained to supplement the educational principles 
which he set forth, to demonstrate to the reason their 
validity, and to arrange them in a logical whole. No 
one has contributed more to the attainment of these 
ends than has Herbart. 

HERBARTIAN INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN SCHOOL-WORK 

A goodly proportion of the leaders of educational 
thought in America during the last two or three 
decades have been Herbartians trained under Dr. 
Rein, the eminent Herbartian, at the University of 
Jena. This, together with the voluminous and at- 
tractive Herbartian literature and the tendency which 



2g2 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

the Herbartians have always manifested of putting 
theories to the test in actual school-work, accounts for 
the influence which Herbartianism exerts upon school 
procedure in America to-day. This influence, in most 
respects salutary, manifests itself (a) in the prevalent 
opinion that school-work exists primarily for the de- 
velopment of moral character, (b) in the attention 
given to the arousal and development of the child's 
interests, (c) in the attention paid to questions and 
discussions preliminary to presentation of new facts, 
to correlation of studies, and to other means of fur- 
thering the apperceptive process, the assimilation of 
new ideas by old, (d) in the extensive use in the 
lower grades of folk stories and of the classical liter- 
ature of primitive stages of civilization. (The epoch 
theory was developed and applied in school-work by 
Herbart and his disciples.) 



CHAPTER XXX 

INFLUENCE UPON SCHOOL-WORK OF 

THE DARWINIAN THEORY 

OF EVOLUTION 

About the middle of the nineteenth century the 
discovery by Darwin of principles which raised the 
theory of evolution from the status of mere opinion 
to that of an illuminating scientific hypothesis led to 
an extraordinarily vigorous and widespread interest in 
the natural and particularly the biological sciences, 
and this In different ways affected the theory and prac- 
tice of school education. In the first place It led to 
a demand for a larger place for the sciences upon the 
school curriculum. One of the foremost advocates 
of this reform was Herbert Spencer. His views as 
to the importance of science are summarized by him- 
self as follows : " Thus to the question with which we 
set out — What knowledge Is of most worth? — the 
uniform reply Is- — Science. This Is the verdict on all 
the counts. For direct self-preservation, or the main- 
tenance of life and health, the all-Important knowl- 
edge Is — Science. For that Indirect self-preservation 
which we call gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of 
greatest value is — Science. . . . For that Interpre- 
tation of national life, past and present, without 
which the citizen cannot rightly regulate his conduct, 

293 



294 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

the indispensable key is — Science. Alike for the 
most perfect production and highest enjoyment of 
art in all its forms, the needful preparation is still — 
Science. And for purposes of discipline, intellectual, 
moral, religious, the most efficient study is, once more 
— Science. . . . And yet the knowledge which is of 
such transcendent value is that which, in our age of 
boasted education, receives the least attention." 

Another forceful exponent of the claims of science 
to recognition in the common schools was Thomas 
Huxley. While doing justice to the importance of 
literary training as an element in education, he argues 
with great cogency for the study in school of the 
things and forces in nature with which man has to 
deal. " Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life 
and fortune of every one of us would one day or 
other depend upon his winning or losing a game at 
chess. Don't you think we should all consider it to 
be a primary duty to learn at least the names and 
moves of the pieces ? . . . Yet it is a very plain and 
elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the 
happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of 
those who are connected with us, do depend upon our 
knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely 
more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a 
game which has been played for untold ages, every 
man and woman of us being one of the two players 
in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is 
the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the uni- 
verse, the rules of the game are what we call the laws 
of Nature. ... What I mean by Education is 



THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF EVOLUTION 295 

learning the rules of this mighty game. In other 
words, education is the instruction of the intellect in 
the laws of Nature, under which name I include 
not merely things and their forces, but men and their 
ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the 
will into an earnest and loving desire to move in har- 
mony with those laws." 

The reforms thus so vigorously advocated have 
been carried out in America not only in the develop- 
ment of scientific courses in high schools and colleges, 
but in increase of attention in the elementary school 
to such subjects as nature study and geography. • 

The doctrine of evolution has made itself felt not 
only in a modification of the common school cur- 
riculum but in a broadening and deepening of the 
conception of school education. It has come to be 
looked upon as a phase of the evolutionary process, a 
process of more complete adaptation to and utiliza- 
tion of environment. This environment in the case 
of man is, for the most part, social. Hence the prog- 
ress of the individual is conditioned by the progress 
of society and vice versa. It follows that the char- 
acter of the education most valuable for a given in- 
dividual is determined in some measure by the char- 
acter, tastes, and pursuits of the society of which he 
is a member. In this way problems of education 
have become involved with those of sociology. 



GENERAL RESUME 

As European civilization developed, the need of a 
knowledge of arts and sciences that would afford 
pleasant and profitable employment of leisure or 
would facilitate intercourse, led to the gradual dif- 
ferentiation from the social organism, first among the 
Greeks, of institutions for affording a non-profes- 
sional or liberal education. These music and reading 
schools were private enterprises. Among the later 
Romans some of the non-professional schools were 
supported by municipalities and a few by the state. 
The professional religious schools connected with par- 
ish church, cathedral, or monastery were almost the 
only ones to survive the breaking up of the Roman 
empire. As civilization revived, these assumed the 
functions of the secular schools. The growing de- 
mand for instruction among the laity was met 
largely by the establishment of schools In con- 
nection with chantries, hospitals, and other religious 
foundations. 

In the great commercial and Industrial centers that 
sprang up In medieval Europe, schools, professional 
or semi-professional in character, known as reckoning 
schools (Rechenschule) or writing schools, were es- 
tablished. It was In such centers that lay folk- 
schools developed in response to the need, felt often 

296 



GENERAL RESUME 297 

by even the poorest classes, of a knowledge of the art 
of letters. «^n some localities similar institutions, but 
presided over by women and known as dame schools, 
seem to have developed from the creche or day nur- 
sery. 

Under the influence of the Renaissance, secular, 
non-professional schools were established which af- 
forded the leisure classes, particularly in Italy, a lib- 
eral education. Though the movement progressed 
more slowly and assumed a somewhat different char- 
acter among the peoples of Northern Europe, to 
whom Roman culture was not in any degree native, 
nevertheless even here it resulted in the evolution of 
a new type of secondary school, the classical grammar 
school, ' Gymnasium,' which aimed primarily to train 
in the use of the Latin language and in the apprecia- 
tion of Latin literature. This school first assumed 
definite form under Sturm at Strassburg. These new 
educational ideals ultimately revolutionized the work 
in the older church schools. 

Though the doctrines of the Reformation made 
elementary instruction of even the poorest classes a 
logical necessity, the attendant religious excitement 
and political disorder hindered the establishment of 
schools and gave to the aim and content of school- 
work a narrowly religious character. 

In England school-work was hindered during the 
Reformation period through the misappropriation of 
school property in the execution of the Chantries Act. 
Many schools, however, chiefly classical grammar 
schools, survived this secularizing process, and their 



2gS HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION 

number was later augmented through private benefi- 
cence. 

The Calvinistic and Puritan movements, through 
emphasizing the importance of personal knowledge 
of the Scriptures, gave an even more pronouncedly re- 
ligious character to the work of the petty and writing 
schools and brought them into closer relations with 
the Church. It was these and the above-mentioned 
grammar schools which were so promptly and gener- 
ally established in the English colonies in America, 
particularly in New England. 

In the seventeenth century a highly improved sys- 
tem of organization and of methods of public school- 
work was elaborated by Comenius. The immediate 
results of his work were largely nullified, however, 
by the Thirty Years' War. After the Restoration in 
England, the application by the triumphant state 
church of a religious test to candidates for entrance 
into public schools compelled the Non-conformists to 
establish secondary schools of their own, which they 
called * academies.' The course of study in these 
was determined less by tradition and more by the 
needs of the time. Schools of this type and name 
multiplied in America, where they largely displaced 
the older grammar school. 

The great modern movement for universal school 
education runs parallel with the movements of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for the political 
enfranchisement and the social betterment of the 
lower classes. A definite beginning of the modern 
state system of school education is to be found In the 



GENERAL RESUME 299 

attempts of the Germans In the dawn of the nine- 
teenth century to free themselves from the Napoleonic 
yoke. 

The great pioneer In the secular, non-professional 
education of the poorer classes was Pestalozzl. Im- 
portant contributions to the solution of the problems 
which his new point of view of school education pre- 
sented have been made by himself, by Froebel, Her- 
bart, and others. 

In America the crux of the problem of universal 
education has been to provide school privileges for 
all without making invidious distinctions between the 
poor and the well-to-do classes. The problem was 
finally solved through making the schools free to all, 
rich and poor alike. 

This successful solution of the problem of pro- 
viding elementary school education for all classes led 
to the demand for secondary education for all, even 
the poorest classes. The demand was met by the 
establishment of the high school, the ^people's col- 
lege,' tax-supported and free to all. Along with this 
function, the high school has been forced to assume, 
especially in the newer parts of the country, a function 
of the older academies and grammar schools, namely, 
that of preparing students for the university. 



INDEX 



A-B-C-Darius, 215 

' Abce/ 217 

Aberdeen, 160 

Academy, of Plato, 22\ Milton, 

244; Dissenters', 244, 246; 

rise of, 247 ; in America, 252- 

254 
Acaster, 162 
Act of Uniformity, 247 
Adams, John, 258, 274 
^schines, 11, 19 
^sop, 106 
Africa, Roman culture in, 'jz-) 

74 
Agricola, Julius, 52; Rudolph, 

185 
Aidan, 79 

Alberta, Battista, 180 
Alcuin, 85, 86, 112, 123, 137 
Aldhelm, 80, 84, 112 
Alexandria, 32 
Alfred the Great, 87 
Algebra, 35, 91 
Alphabetic method, 12, 43, 92, 

216 
America, schools in, 221-225, 

252-260, 275-282 
American Revolution, 264, 270 
Andover Academy, 254 
Anselm, 172 
Antoninus Pius, 53 
Apuleius, 49 

Arabic, influence, 91, 92; no- 
tation, 12 
Aratus, 124, 126 
Aristophanes, 12, 13, 20 
Aristotle, 5, 11, 23, 26, 55, 83, 

115, 116, 173, 187, 226 
Arithmetic, Greek, 13; Roman, 

44, 62; medieval, 94, 117; 

seventeenth century, 219 
Ascham, 194 



Astronomy, Roman, 61, 62; 

medieval, 125 
Athenian, culture, i; schools, 

10 
Athens, 4, 28, 66, 272 
Augustine, Aurelius, 44, 78; 

St., 83 
Aurelius, Marcus, 53, 68 
Ausonius, 52, 73 
Awakening, the Great, 251 
Azarias, Brother, 144 



Bachelor, degree of, 177 

Bacon, 226, 239 

B^da, 83, 84 

Bamberg, 137 

Basle, 138 

Becket, Thomas a, 114, 139 

Bell, Andrew, 276 

Benedict, 72, 80 

Benedictine Order, 85, 133 

Beverley, 135 

Black Death, 136 

Blankenburg, 285 

Bobbio, 84 

Boccaccio, 182 

Boethius, 82, 109, 115, 116, 119 

Boissier, 73 

Bologna, 176 

Boniface, 84, 93, 112 

Bordeaux, 73 

Boston, 222, 288 

Boston Latin School, 222, 224 

Breslau, 143 

Brethren of the Common Life, 

185, 193 
Brunswick, 191, 192 
Buildings, school, 11, 42, 130, 

203, 214 
Burgdorf, 268, 285, 288 
Butler, Bishop, 249 



301 



302 



INDEX 



Caesar, Julius, 52 

Calculator, Roman, 62 

California, 281 

Calvinism, 221 

Canterbury, cathedral school 
at, 83 

Capella, Martianus, 62, 74, 81, 
go, 109, III, 116, 117, 122, 
123, 125 

Carvilius, Spurius, 42 

Cassian, John, 72 

Cassiodorus, 72, 78, 80, 81, 82, 
89, 99, III, 116 

Catechetical schools, 70, 257 

Catechism, 191, 194, 218 

Cathedral schools, 70, 133, 
178 

Cato, the Censor, 41, 49; med- 
ieval text, 106, 143 

Chancellor, 71, 134, 177 

Chantries Act, 199, 201, 212, 
215, 216 

Chantry, schools, 147; certifi- 
cates, 150 

Charity schools, 256, 257 

Charlemagne, 85, 86, 87, 93 

Chaucer, 93, 135, 147, 155, 165, 
177, 182 

Chivalrous education, 152-157 

Chria, 59 

Chrodegang of Metz, 70, 85 

Church, and pagan learning, 
77; and Crusades, 158 

Cicero, 41, 50, 51, 61, 11 1 

Citharist, 4, 17 

City grammar schools, 159 

Civil ^ war, English, 239, 247 

Civilization, Greek and mod- 
ern, I 

Classical schools, sixteenth 
century, 193 

Classification, of schools, 
Greek, 4; Roman, 49; medi- 
eval, 129, 146; seventeenth 
century, 212 

Clerical control of schools, 
origin, 140, 160, 191, 195; 
survival, 216 

Colet, John, 149 

Collegiate church schools, 133 



Colonial schools, 221; decline 
of, 224 

Columba, 79 

Columban, 84 

Comenius, 230-238, 270 

Commentaries, medieval, 109, 
no 

Connecticut schools, 223, 224 

Conveyancing in medieval 
schools, 113, 114 

Cooley, Thomas, 281 

Copernicus, 126 

Counter-Reformation, 195 

Course of study, Greek, 12, 
16; Roman, 43, 53, 82; me- 
dieval, 92; seventeenth cen- 
tury, 216, 219; Milton's, 242 

Crabbe, 213 

Creche, 213 

Cromwell, 248 

Crusades, 157, 172 

Culture conditions, Greece, 2; 
Alexandria, 32; Rome, 46; 
medieval, 76 

Curtius, 8 



Dame school, 161, 224 

Dante, 181 

Darwinian theory, 293 

Degrees, university, 176, 178 

Demosthenes, 7, n 

Deportment in medieval 
schools, 132, 156 

Dialectic, 114 

Didaskalia, 6 

Dionysius of Hallcarnassus, 43 

Discipline, Roman, 63; mo- 
nastic, 131 

Dock, Christopher, 156, 254 

Doctor, degree, 176, 178 

* Doctrinale,' Alexander's, 98, 
103, 187, 193 

Donatus, 100, 109, 143, 162, 
206 

Dramatic poets, the teaching 
of, 6 

Drane, 144 

Dryden, 240 

Dunstan, 87, 166 



INDEX 



303 



Ebrard, 104 

Edinburgh, 161 

Education, extra-school, Greek, 
19; Roman, 2)7 

Educational writers of seven- 
teenth century, 242 

Edward IV, 155 ; VI, 200 

Elementary instruction, medi- 
eval, 92; in Americvj254__„. 

Elementary schoolTGreek, 12; 
Roman, 41, 46; Reformation, 

,191 

Emile, 261 

Endowment of schools, Eng- 
lish, 202 ; American, 222, 223, 

253, 254 

England, schools of, at Refor- 
mation, 199 ; seventeenth 
century, 212 

Enlightenment, the, 239, 250, 
261 

Ennius, 48, 51 

Ephebes, 26, 29 

Epicurus, 25 

' Epistolse Obscurorum Vi- 
rorum,' 187 

Erasmus, 164, 185, 188 

Ethology, 59 

Eton, 215 

Euclid, 35 

Evolution, 295, 295 

Exeter academy, 254 

Extension of medieval educa- 
tion, 157 

Extra-school education, Greek, 
19; Roman, zi 

Faculties, 178 

Fichte, 273 

Fitzstephen, 114, 116 

Folk-school, 160, 191 

Francke, 251, 256 

Franklin, 253 

French Revolution, 264, 270 

Froebel, 283-288 

Fulda, 84, 129, 166 

Galileo, 239 
Games, Greek, 8 



Gargantua and Pantagruel, 

206 
Gaul, Roman culture in, 73 
Gellius, Aulus, 57, 64 
Geography, in Greek schools, 

17; Roman, 61; medieval, 
122 
Geometry, in Greek schools, 

21 ; Roman, 61 ; medieval, 

121 
Georgia, 256 

Gerbert, 117, 123, 126, 127 
Germany, Renaissance in, 

184, 187; Reformation, 186; 

Pestalozzianism in, 272 ; 

state school system in, 191, 

275 
Girard, 10, 12, 14 
Glasgow, 160 
Gloucester, school case, 165; 

Sunday school, 257, 276 
Goethe, 2.^7 
Goliards, 138 
Gothic architecture, 167 
Grace-book, 162 
Grammar, 21, 35, 55, 97 
Grammar schools, cathedral 

and collegiate, 134; royal, 

201, 215; seventeenth cen- 
tury, 212, 214, 215, 224; 

American, 252, 253 
Grammaticus, 48 
Grammatist, 4, 7, 9, 17 
Grasberger, 9 

Great Awakening, The, 251 
Great Didactic, The, 232 
Gregory, of Tours, 75; St., 93 
Greek, ^ education, 2; culture 

conditions, 2; isolation, 3 ; 

Influence, 28; culture among 

the Romans, 47; schools in 

Rome, 50 
Greeks and modern civilization, 

I 
Griiner, 284 
Guild schools, 148; craft, 165; 

of teachers, 176, 177 
Gymnasium, Greek, 19, 40; 

German, 50, 193 
Gymnastic training, Greek, 8 



304 



INDEX 



Hamburg, 141, 160 

Harris, Dr. W. T., 288 

Harrow, 215 

Hartman von Aue, 112 

Henry VHI, 199 

Herbart, 288-292 

Hermogenes, 60 

Herodotus, 7 

High school, 280 

History in Greek schools, 17; 
in Renaissance schools, 184 

Homer, 7, 15 

Hoole, 212, 213, 218 

Horace, 50, no 

Hornbook, 216 

Hospital schools, 150 

Housing and equipment, of 
Greek schools, 11; Roman, 
42; monastic, 130; dame 
schools, 214 ; seventeenth 
century schools, 203 

Hrabanus, see Rabanus 

Humanism, 182 

Huxley, Thomas, 294 

Industrial training in medieval 

schools, 132 
Iowa, 281 
Ireland, 79 

Isidore, 83, 98, in, 116 
Islip, Archbishop, 147 
Italians and the Renaissance, 

182 



Janssen, 144 

* Janua Linguarum,' 231, 237 

Jefferson, 259, 274^ 

Jesuits, schools of, 195-198 

Jesus, Order of, 195 

John of Gorze, 96, 113 

Judicial confirmation of right 

to teach, 164 
Juvenal, 52, 56, 63, 64, 109 

Kalamazoo School Case, 281 
Kindergarten, 283, 285, 287; 

in America, 288 
Krusi, Herman, 274 



Lancaster, Joseph, 276 

Lanfranc, 172 

La Salle, 257 

Latin, in medieval schools, 95, 
97; in classical schools, 194 

Latin schools, 50, 222, 253 

Law, Roman schools, 66; in 
medieval schools, 112; re- 
vival of study of, 172 

Lay education, medieval, 152 

Leach, 99, 129, 134, 136, 150 

Leipzig, 192 

' Leonard and Gertrude,' 267 

Leonardo da Vinci, 182, 226 

Letter-writing in medieval 
schools, 112, 113 

Lindisfarne, 79, 84 

Lissa, 231 

Literators, 41, dy 

Literature, Alexandrian, 33 ; 
in Roman schools, 56; in 
medieval schools, 105-110; 
in Renaissance schools, 183- 
184 

Locke, 240, 244, 270 

Liibeck, 141, 163 

Lucian, 8, 11, 19 

Luther, Martin, 186, 188-189 

Lyric poets, the teaching of, 6 

Maclure, Wm., 273 

Madison, 260, 274 

Magnus, Olaus, 89 

Maintenance, of Greek schools, 
10; Roman, 51-53; medieval, 
131, 146; American, 222-223, 

275, 278-279 
Mann, Horace, 277 
Manners, in medieval schools, 

131-132; in colonial schools, 

156 
Master, degree of, 163, 166, 

176, 178 
Mathematical education, 239 
Medicine, study of, 171 
Melanchthon, Philip, 185, 190 
Methodist movement, 251 
Methods, Greek, 12, 13, 14; 

Roman, 62; medieval, 100; 

seventeenth century, 216 



INDEX 



305 



Metz, 127 

Michigan, 281 

Middle Ages, schools of, "jd', 

their aim, 88; classes, 90, 

129, 146 
Military training and Greek 

school work, 8 
Milton, 242, 246, 247, 270 
Mohammedan, learning, 90 ; 

doctrines, 172 
Monastery, 129 
Monastic, schools, 71, 80, 81, 

129; orders, 132 
Monasticism, origin of, 71 ; re- 
forms, 80 
Monitorial system, 255 ; of Bell 

and Lancaster, 276 
Montaigne, 208, 245, 270 
Monte Cassino, 80 
Moral Education through 

poetry, 5 
Morrow Mass Schools, 149 
Mulcaster, Richard, 219 
Municipal schools, 52 
Museum of Alexandria, 34 
Music, in Greek social life, 4; 

in Greek schools, 20 ; in 

Rome, 61 ; in medieval 

schools, 94, 126 
Music school, Greek, 4, 6; 

course of study, 16 

Natural history in medieval 

schools, 123 
Naturalistic movement, 261 
Neander, 190 
Neef, Joseph, t.'jz 
' New England Primer,' 218 
New Hampshire, 281 
New Harmony, 273 
New York, 275, 276, 288 
Newton, 239 
Nicholas of Cusa, 184 
Norman Conquest, 88 
Northumberland, Earl of, 139 

Odo of Sherrington, 106 
Odyssey, 43 
Ohio, 281 
Oratory, 27, 48 



' Orbis Pictus,' 237 
Ordinance, Massachusetts, of 

1647, 221; Federal, of 1787, 

279 



Psedotribe, 4 

Paine, Thomas, 241 

Palace school of Charlemagne, 
85 

Palestra, 4, 9, 18 

Paley, 241 

Paris, University of, 176 

Parish schools, 142 

Parmentier, 165 

Patrick, St., 79 

Pedagogue, 19 

Periclean age, culture condi- 
tions of, 3 

Peripatetic school of philos- 
ophy, 23 

Pestalozzi, 266-274, 283, 284, 
285, 288 

Petrarch, 181 

Petties, The, 135, 215 

Petty school, 161, 212, 213, 218, 
219, 224 

Phaedrus, 105 

Philadelphia, 253, 257, 258, 273, 
276 

Phillips academies, 254 

Philosophers, their function 
among the Greeks, 5 

Philosophy, Greek schools of, 
21; decline of, 27; endow- 
ment, 53 

Physical training, Greek, 18; 
Roman, 40; knightly, 154, 
155 ; Renaissance, 184 

' Physiologus,' 124 

Pietistic movement, 250, 256, 
261 

Plato, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, 
22, 25, 27, 173 

Plutarch,_ 42 

Poet, didactic function of, 
among early Greeks, 5 

Poetry, function among early 
Greeks, 5; teaching of, 14; 
including other subjects, 17 



3o6 



INDEX 



Political freedom and school 
education, 258 

Politics of Aristotle, 26 

Poor students, support of, 131, 
137 

Pope, 240 

Porphyry, 115, 173 

Precentor, 134, 141 

Priestley, Joseph, 249 

Primer, 162, 217 

Priscian, 102, 109 

Private collegiate establish- 
ments, 139 

Private schools, 51 

Privileges of teachers, 52 

Proscholus, 68 

Protagoras, 8, 11 

Ptolemy, 34 

Quadrivum, 62, 82, 96, 117 
Quintilian, 43, 51, 56, 57, S8, 
59, 60, 61, 62, 66, 183 

Rabanus Maurus, 86, 114, 118, 

119, 124, 127 
Rabelais, 108, 206 
Raikes, Robert, 257, 276 
* Ratio Studiorum,' 196 
Ratke, Wolfgang, 230, 270 
Reading, Greek, 12-16; Roman, 
43; medieval, 92; seven- 
teenth century, 218 
Reading school, 11, 212, 253 
Reckoning board, 45, 119 
Reckoning school, 162 
Rector, 164 
Reformation, 151, 163, 186, 187, 

199 
Reformers, educational, 205 ; 

school, 230 
Reichenau, 117, 129, 166 
Religion, Greek, and music, 6 
Renaissance, twelfth century, 
152, 171 ; fifteenth century, 
179-185 ; educational influ- 
ence ^ in Northern Europe, 
187; influence on educational 
thought, 205, 226 
Republic of Plato, 25 
Resume, Greek education, 30; 



Roman, 68; medieval, 168; 

general, 296 
Reuchlin, 185, 190 
Revival of learning, 85, 87, 152, 

171, 179, 239, 293 
Revival, religious, in England 

and America, 251 
Rhapsodes, 7, 9 
Rheims, 117 
Rhetoric, Greek, 27; Roman, 

58, 62, 73; medieval, iii 
Rhodes, 66 
Richerus, 116, 126 
Rome, schools of, 37, 41, 51, 

63; geographical conditions, 

38; national traits, 39 
Rothertham College, 162 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 261- 

264, 266, 287 
Rugby, 215 

Rule of St. Benedict, 80 
'Rules for Boys,' 143, 156 

Salisbury, 135 

Sander, 144 • 

Saxony, 192 

Schmid, 144 

Scholastic movement, 172 

Scholasticus, 71, 134, 140, 160, 

177 
Science, in Greek schools, 18; 

Roman, 61; medieval, 117; 

Renaissance, 184 ; modern, 

263, 272, 293-295 
Scribes as teachers, Greek, 7, 

9 ; Roman, 67 ; medieval, 164 ; 

seventeenth century, 219 
Scrivener, see Scribe 
Secondary schools, Greek, 4; 

Roman, 46, 51; Renaissance 

and Reformation, 190; free, 

in America, 280 
Secular schools, Roman, in 

Middle Ages, 89 
Sentences, 59 
Servius, 109 

Seven liberal arts, 62, 81 
Seventeenth century schools in 

England, 212; English edu- 
cational writers, 242 



INDEX 



307 



Shakespeare, 164 (note), 180 

Shaler, 3 

Shenstone, 213 

Sidonius, Apollinaris, 74 

Social life of the Greeks, edu- 
cational features of, 4 

Social rank of teacher, Greek, 
1 1 ; Roman, 67 ; medieval, 
163 

Societies, school, 275 

Sociology, 295 

Socrates, 21 

Song school, 134 

Sophists, Greek, 26 

Spencer, Herbert, 293 

Spinoza, 241 

St. Gall, 84, 117, 126, 127, I2Q, 
166 

St. Louis, 288 

Stanz, 267 

State, supervision, Greek, 10; 
schools in Rome, 53; schools 
in Germany, 191, 275 ; 
schools in America, 275-282; 
universities, 282 

Status of teachers, Greek, 10; 
Roman, (^T, medieval, 163 

Stipendiary schools, 149 

Stoic school of philosophy, 20 

Strabo, 34, 123 

Strassburg, 192, 193 

Stubbs, 139 

Sturm, 193 

Suetonius, 46, 53, 59, 64 

Sunday schools, 257, 276 

Supervision, Greek, 10 ; Ameri- 
can, 278 

Support of schools, Greek, 10; 
Roman, 53; medieval, 131, 
146; American, 222-223, 275, 
278-297 



Teachers, Greek, 4; rhapsodes 
as, 7; scribes as, 7, dy, 164, 
219; Roman, 49; medieval, 
164, in Georgia, 256 

Tertullian, 74, 'jy 

Text-books, medieval, 82, 100, 
III, 115, 119, 124, 125, 127 



Theobald, Archbishop, 139 
Theodore of Tarsus, 79, 83 
Theodulus, Eclogue of, 106, 

143, 206 
Theology, study of, 82, 172, 

178, 186, 188, 190, 221, 239 
Theory, Greek educational, 25 
Tractate, Milton's, 248 
Training of teachers, 67-68, 

177,. 197, 257, 277 
Transition period, 70 
Trevisa, John, 88, 217 
Trivium, 62, 82, 97, 98 
Trotzendorf, 190 
Tutors, private, 163 



Universal school education, 
and democracy, 258; spread 
of, 275; American legisla- 
tion aiming at, 278-279 

University, Athens, 27, 29; 
Alexandria, 35 ; medieval, 
166, 171; state, in America, 
282 



Vacations, Greek, 10; Jesuit 
school, 197; Pietistic school, 
251 

Varro, 55 

Vergil, see Virgil 

Vespasian, 53, 66 

Virgil, 57, 100, 108, 109, i8i 

Virginia, 259 

Vittorino da Feltre, 184 



Walter the Englishman, 105 

Warwick, 135 

Watts, Isaac, 249, 254 

William of Malmesbury, 122 

Winchester, 138, 143, 215 

Wordsworth, 3 

Worms, 13^ 

Writing, in Greek schools, 13; 

Roman, 43; medieval, 93; 

seventeenth century, 218 
Writing schools, Greek, 11, 17; 

Roman, 43; medieval, 93, 



3o8 INDEX 

162; seventeenth century, York, cathedral school, 134, 
212, 215, 218, 224 142 

Wurtemberg, 191 Yverdun, 268, 273, 284 

Xenophanes, 5 

Xenophon, 15 Zeno, 24 



